George Westinghouse; his life and achievements

GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

HIS LIFE AND ACHIEVEMENTS

GEORGE
WESTINGHOUSE

His Life and Achievements

BY

FRANCIS E. LEUPP

Illustrated from Photographs

BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY

1919

Copyright, 1918,

BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
All rights reserved

Norfooon

Set up and electrotyped by J. S. Gushing Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
Presswork by S. J. Parkhill & Co., Boston, Mass., U.S.A.

TO MY DEAR OLD FRIEND

THE HONORABLE MARTIN A. KNAPP,

WHO HAS LABORED FOR THE RAILWAYS

ON THEIR ECONOMIC SIDE

AS GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE DID FOR THEIR
PHYSICAL STRENGTH AND SAFETY

3923

PREFACE

ALTHOUGH George Westinghouse was, in the
broadest sense, a public servant, my own acquaint-
ance with him was only social. As he left behind
him no diaries, no files of personal correspondence,
and scarcely any other sources of supply on which
the biographer of a political or military celebrity
depends for much interesting material, I have been
obliged to rely, in the main, on the memories of
the friends of Mr. Westinghouse, local tradition and
gossip in neighborhoods where he had lived, the
records of courts and minutes of public meetings,
corporate reports and partnership account books,
old volumes of newspapers and magazines, mis-
cellaneous scrapbooks, and the like. One day, let
us hope, we may have from the pen of some well-
known expert in technology an adequate summary
of what the whole world's industrial advancement
owes to the work of the eminent inventor. The
mission of the present volume is simply human. It
will have been accomplished if it conveys to the
young man of today a sense that his career will
depend for success less on the splendor of its start
than on the spirit in which he pursues it ; far less
on capital than on courage, on worry than on watch-
fulness, on "pull" than on persistence.

vii

viii PREFACE

Of the gentlemen to whom I am indebted for as-
sistance in this task, I beg here to return thanks to
Mr. Ernest H. Heinrichs, who for some years was
attached to the personal staff in the Westinghouse
office in Pittsburgh, and who passed over to me the
copious notes he had made with a view to a possible
biography of his chief ; to Mr. H. C. Tener, the last
private secretary of Mr. Westinghouse ; to Mr.
Alexander G. Uptegraff, who for a long period was
a member of the family circle and represented
Mrs. Westinghouse in many of her social and char-
itable projects ; to Mr. George W. Jones, a relative
who is still engaged in business at the old head-
quarters of "G. Westinghouse & Co." in Schenec-
tady, New York ; to the authors of the excellent
books and magazine articles from which I have
drawn facts or inspiration ; and to a number of
interesting men and women whom I have quoted
in my narrative. In an effort to avoid errors, I
have, as far as practicable, submitted doubtful
passages to various persons whose criticism would
be valuable, and in all cases where their opinions
disagreed I have exercised my own discretion. I am
making this statement as a matter of fairness to
every one concerned.

F. E. L.
WASHINGTON, D. C.,
July i, 1918.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

PREFACE vii

I "Ax FIRST, THE INFANT" i

II "THE AGE TWIXT BOY AND YOUTH" . . .13

III SOLDIER AND SAILOR, STUDENT AND SWAIN . . 29

IV OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS AT THE DOOR .... 47
V DOUBT CHANGED TO CERTAINTY 62

VI "NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE SUCCESS" .... 76

VII THE BATTLE OF THE BRAKES 91

VIII OPENING A MINE OF GASEOUS WEALTH . . . 106

IX WHAT THE GAS DID FOR PITTSBURGH . . .119

X THE CONTEST OF THE CURRENTS . . . .131

XI THE STRUGGLE IN NEW YORK . . . . .143

XII ORIGIN OF THE "STOPPER" LAMP .... 156

XIII FROM NIAGARA TO THE NAVY 171

XIV "BLUSHING HONORS THICK UPON HIM" . . .188
XV A SECOND FINANCIAL ORDEAL 204

XVI AIR SPRINGS AND ADDRESSES 219

XVII A BIG MAN'S HUMAN SIDE 232

XVIII "THE OLD MAN" AND His EMPLOYEES . . .246

XIX A TRIO OF HOMES 259

XX INSIGNIA OF CHARACTER 274

XXI "LAST SCENE OF ALL" 290

INDEX 3QI

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

George Westinghouse . . . Frontispiece in Photogravure

The Mother and Father of George Westinghouse FACING PAGE 4

Birthplace at Central Bridge, N. Y. . . . " " 10

George Westinghouse. From a War-Time Portrait " " 30

George Westinghouse and Mrs. Westinghouse

during their Earlier Days of Wedded Life . " " 46

The First Westinghouse Air Brake Factory . " 72

Locomotive and Passenger Car That Constituted a
Part of the First Train Used for a Public Ex-
hibition of the Brake " "76

"Solitude," the Westinghouse Home at Pittsburgh " " 122

Marguerite Erskine Westinghouse . " 134

George Westinghouse at Work . " " 180

Erskine Manor, the Lenox Residence ..." " 264

GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

CHAPTER I
"Ax FIRST, THE INFANT"

IN the northeast corner of Schoharie County, New
York, lies the village of Central Bridge. To most
travelers on the railroad that skirts its border it is
only a way station, to students of the map a dot ;
but to it our country owes a debt, for out of it came
one of those uncommon men whose achievements
have shed luster upon the American name in all parts
of the earth, and whose character is a precious herit-
age to younger generations in search of an exemplar.
He was not a military hero, though he tasted war ;
he was not a statesman, though counting Presidents
and Kings among his friends ; he was master of no
magic arts, yet his clever hands, responsive to a fertile
mind, were always busy converting prophecy into
history. He gloried in the fact that he was simply
a man among men, with sturdy muscles and an active
brain, whose so-called genius consisted of the broadest
of human sympathies and the keenest sense of future
possibilities harnessed to a tireless perseverance.

i GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

Central Bridge, which is not yet a large community,
was in the earlier half of the last century the heart of
a back-country farming district. Its aboriginal pos-
sessors were the Mohegan Indians, who opened sev-
eral trails from the Hudson and Mohawk valleys into
the Schoharie valley, and made some primitive ef-
forts at agriculture. Its first permanent white settle-
ment appears to have been by the German Palatine
immigrants after their dispersion from the Livingston
Manor. They arrived in a condition of great pov-
erty, bearing all their worldly goods bound to their
shoulders, and endured every kind of discouraging
experience while they were making the wilderness
habitable. There was something infectious in their
stubborn refusal to be crushed by hardships. It
spread to the new neighbors who gradually moved
into the valley, which, though suffering not a little
from raids in the war of the Revolution, gradually
blossomed forth with fertile and well-tilled farms,
and became dotted here and there with churches,
schools, mills, and small factories, the latter run by
the local water powers. It is because the resolute
spirit of those early days had in it a quality of presage
that I have drawn upon them for a background to
the opening scenes of my story.

There are now, strictly speaking, two villages of
Central Bridge, five minutes' walk apart. The old
Central Bridge of the histories lies in the opening of
the V-shaped point made by the junction of Cobles-
kill Creek with the Schoharie River, and is separated
from its modern namesake by the Creek. The new
village has grown up around the station since the

"AT FIRST, THE INFANT" 3

railroad was run through the valley. To the old
village came, about 1836, one George Westinghouse,
bred a farmer, self-trained a mechanic, with a special
taste for carpentry. He represented the second
generation of the name in this country. Born and
reared near North Pownal, Vermont, he had been
stirred by what he heard of the newly opened West,
and removed soon after his marriage in 1831, to a
farm on the banks of the Cuyahoga River in Ohio,
not far from Cleveland. The climate, however, did
not prove to his liking or to his wife's ; so after a
rather short stay they returned to the East, settling
first at Minaville, in Montgomery County, New
York. It is believed to have been there that the
bent was given to his mind which shaped his whole
after career.

One of his neighbors had acquired a threshing ma-
chine, and this, being a novelty thereabout, interested
Westinghouse, who soon fell to planning means for
improving its efficiency. The subject haunted his
thoughts continually, and his leisure moments were
often employed with pencil and paper, sketching little
designs for parts which he conceived could be re-
modeled with advantage. His wife encouraged him
in this new departure, and warmly approved his sug-
gestion that he might change his occupation and
become a maker of machinery. But Minaville, they
both felt certain, was no place for a factory of the
sort he contemplated : it was far from a base of sup-
plies. He had heard of Central Bridge, with its two
abundant water courses, its system of highways
radiating in every direction, and its convenient dis-

4 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

tance from the growing town of Schenectady. A
visit of inspection satisfied him that it was the site
he was looking for, and he lost no time in making the
move.

Too conservative a manager to give up farming
till he was entirely assured of the success of his manu-
facturing experiment, he bought a fair-sized tract of
bottom land where the river and the creek meet.
Here stood already a few buildings, one of which he
expanded into a shop, where he could repair the ma-
chinery of a brace of mills that were near by, and
work out in wood some of the designs he had sketched.

Before long it became plain that he must choose
definitely between his two occupations and devote his
attention exclusively to one, and, as a patent he had
taken out had begun to bring returns, he made over
most of his farm work to hired hands and spent his
days at the bench. His mechanical operations grad-
ually outgrew the original shop, and an extension had
to be added. This, in its turn, meant more capital
and more help, both of which were forthcoming from
the neighborhood, where the people had come to
recognize in him a man of more than ordinary ability.
His inventions included improvements not only in
threshing machines, but in winnowing appliances,
endless-chain horse powers, and several allied de-
vices, as well as a seed-scraper for broom corn which
attracted notice by its ingenuity.

Mrs. Westinghouse, born Emmeline Vedder, was
of Dutch-English stock. She was a woman of strong
common sense, with a considerable imaginative fac-
ulty. Though she knew too little of the mechanic

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"AT FIRST, THE INFANT " 5

arts to enter into her husband's plans in detail, she
had unbounded faith in him, and helped him where
she could. By this time they had six children,
three boys and three girls — healthy, active, noisy
little folk, whom often it was hard to keep from get-
ting under foot in their father's shop.

One autumn evening Mr. Westinghouse came in
looking unusually tired, but with a light in his eye
which his wife interpreted as meaning that he had
caught a glimmer of hope through a tangle of per-
plexities which he had attempted to explain to her
the day before. His thoughts were so immersed in
the subject with which they had been struggling all
day that he almost failed to recognize an elderly
woman from the village who was stirring about in-
doors, and whom he vaguely remembered to have
seen there on one or two former occasions, lending a
hand at the household work and looking after the
children. The supper table was set, and his wife
was in her chair at her accustomed end, but not eat-
ing. She did not rise as he entered, nor did she offer
to assist as the neighbor helped the hungry children
into their places.

The meal was eaten almost in silence. The hus-
band was abstracted in manner, the children were
repressed by the presence of an outsider, the wife was
reticent as became her attitude toward these occa-
sional moods of his, which she knew portended some
development of consequence. When an opening
came she inquired, half timidly :

" Has it been a good day for you ?"

"It's too soon to speak positively," he answered,

6 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

"but I'm pretty sure I've got that connection to
work. There are two or three things I must figure
out still."

"You'll have those by to-morrow night," she said,
in the hopeful tone he knew so well. "I'm glad
you're near the end."

"I shall have all the figuring done before I go to
bed," he declared. " I've reached a point now where
I couldn't sleep if I tried, and I shan't try."

She made no attempt to argue with him as to the
wisdom of his stealing some rest : she knew too well
what this manner signified. As soon as supper was
finished she took the children with her to the upper
story, while the neighbor rapidly cleared the table,
spread it with its colored cover, set the lamp on it,
and withdrew. The man of the house went out to
his shop, and presently came back bearing a handful
of papers, chiefly rough pencil drawings and scraps
covered with mathematical calculations. These he
laid out in a certain order on the table, drew up a
chair, and two minutes later was sketching and figur-
ing, and otherwise dead to the world. His first re-
lease from the spell was when the clock struck four.
Then he looked up, stretched himself, and with a
great sigh of relief blew out the light and lay down
on the sofa with his eyes closed. He felt that he
could afford to take a brief recess now, for he had
brought the last of his calculations to the desired
conclusion, and it would do him good to think them
over at his ease, preparatory to laying hold of his
tools with the coming of daylight and translating his
theoretical results into a concrete piece of machinery.

"AT FIRST, THE INFANT " 7

It was after six o'clock when he reopened his eyes
with a start and sat up. The sun was lazily playing
on the leaves of a lilac bush that fringed the window.
He looked about him, still too stupid with sleep to
realize fully where he was or how he chanced to be
there. The papers scattered over the table, however,
recalled his night's work and reminded him that he
must hasten now to the shop. The October morning
had a tang of frost in it, and, as the kettle was on the
back of the kitchen stove, he made a fire and had a
cup of hot coffee to drink with the hasty breakfast
for which he foraged while gathering up his litter
from the dining room. He tried to tiptoe out of the
house, but was arrested by his wife's voice at the head
of the stairs, softly calling his name.

"Yes?" he called back, somewhat startled.
" What's the matter?"

"Are you going out? You haven't been to bed."

" No, I've been working all night on those drawings
and specifications. Can I do anything for you?"

Obviously there was nothing, for a negative was
implied in a brief pause ; and then —

"What day is this?"

"Tuesday, the sixth. Why ? "

"Oh" --with just a shade of hesitancy — "never
mind. You won't wait for breakfast?"

" I've had a little — all I need. Don't wait dinner
for me; I'll be home as soon as I can drop things."

He felt a slight pang of discomfort at leaving her
thus abruptly, for somehow she did not seem quite
herself; but this was quickly crowded out by a
thought of the shop and the task which awaited him

8 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

there. The last trace of uncertainty passed with
her cheery response :

"Well, good luck to the new invention !"

It was a busy day. The morning sped and noon
came, but he forgot dinner and everything else except
the job in progress on the bench. The afternoon
wore away — one o'clock, two o'clock, three — at
last ! It was almost four when, the final touches
having been given to the working model, he strode
out of the shop with the glad step of a prisoner set
at liberty. As he approached the cottage he missed
the usual sound of the children at play in the yard.
Opening the door, he was about to shout upstairs
to announce his accomplishment, when he came face
to face with the neighbor, who held her finger to her
lips.

"Speak low, please," she admonished him. "I've
sent the children over to my son's to get rid of their
noise. She's been asleep about an hour now. And,"
noting his look of alarm, " the baby's a boy, and a big
one. He came at twenty minutes past eleven. The
doctor got here just in time. They're both all right."

The baby ! The word fell upon his ear with a sort
of shock, like the sudden sound which rouses one
from a dream. It was followed by a flood of wonder
at his own wooden indifference, as the events of the
last twenty-four hours moved in panoramic review
through his memory. Of course — here was the ex-
planation of so many things which had made only
a shadowy impression on his mind as he noticed them :
his wife's comparative inactivity, the uncommon
quiet of the house, the presence of the elderly neigh-

"AT FIRST, THE INFANT" 9

bor, the generous, self-effacing thought for him which
prevented any suggestion of the nearness of the crisis
lest it might distract his mind from the problem on
the eve of solution !

He crept stealthily up the stairs to the chamber
in which the mother was lying in bed, very still. She
had just awakened, and looked up at him with a
curious smile playing over her face.

"How does the machine come on?"

"It's finished, and it works."

"Good!"

Her eyes followed him as he gently drew aside the
topmost fold of a flannel wrapping that swathed a
formless bundle in a crib by the bedside.

"Aren't you pleased that it's a boy?" she whis-
pered.

"I'm glad it's all over, and that you have come
through so well," he answered in a noncommittal
way, "though I thought you were hoping for a girl."

" I was, at first ; but ever since you began this last
machine I have had it in my mind night and day -
you seemed so wrapped up in it. And then I began
to hope we might have another boy, so that he could
help you with your work, and in course of time take
it up where you leave it. He is born on the very
day of your triumph, George, and I want him to be
named for you."

In vain the father protested that one George West-
inghouse was enough in the family : the mother would
listen to no counter proposal. And thus George
Westinghouse, Junior, made his bow to the world on
the sixth of October, 1846.

io GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

The childhood of this latest addition to the family
was not distinguished from the life of other lads in
the village by anything that seemed to point to the
mark he was one day to make in the world. On the
contrary, he was noted chiefly for his continual revolt
against the confinement of the schoolroom, his dis-
taste for textbooks and routine study, and his pug-
nacious disposition. He entered more or less into
the sports of his schoolmates, but ordinary games
did not attract him strongly. The one place in which
he would rather be than anywhere else was his father's
shop. His father was resolved that he should apply
himself to his studies, and used to forbid him the
shop during school hours ; but George was not in-
clined to yield to such indirect compulsion, and, if
he had made up his mind on a given morning not to
go to school, go he would not, but would stubbornly
stretch himself on the grass somewhere and play for
hours with a few pieces of wood, whittling them into
mechanical shapes and pivoting them together with
bent pins, so that they would interplay like the
jointed members of a piece of machinery. Not a
few of the adult villagers used to look upon him with
an air of pity, and wonder what was to become of
so ill-promising a boy when he grew up.

Discriminating observers might have read in some
of his traits which were then regarded as least ami-
able the signs of a masterful quality. If he felt any
specially strong desire, he would not brook the slight-
est opposition to his efforts to gratify it. When
persistent demands were unavailing, he would fly
into a rage which was terrifying to behold. Old

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"AT FIRST, THE INFANT" 11

neighbors of the family still remember these parox-
ysms, which took the form first of screaming and
stamping, and then of throwing himself flat and bang-
ing his head against any hard surface that came most
convenient — the floor, the wall of a room, the side
of a house. Near the family cottage was a large flat
stone on which he repeatedly thus tried conclusions
with his skull. If every one about him remained
obdurate, he would keep up the disturbance till his
strength was utterly exhausted. Usually, however,
some older member of the household, unable to en-
dure the demonstration longer, would yield the point
at issue, and his tears, cries, and self-torture would
cease as suddenly as they had begun. In either event
there was no aftermath of sullenness, but his return
to normality was complete. Speaking in later years
of these outbursts, he remarked with whimsical hu-
mor: "I had a fixed notion that what I wanted I
must have. Somehow, that idea has not entirely
deserted me throughout my life. I have always
known what I wanted, and how to get it. As a child,
I got it by tantrums ; in mature years, by hard work."
An old lady is still living who saw a good deal of
the Westinghouse family during their residence in
Central Bridge, and for whom George, at the age of
six, conceived a strong attachment. "I remember
just how he looked then," she said the other day.
" I can see still his earnest little face, with its wrinkle
between the blue eyes as if he were already solving
problems, and the way he would turn it up to mine
when he asked some trifling favor. It is true that
he was a tempestuous child, and would fly now and

12 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

then into a fearful passion ; but I suspect that he was
not so much to blame for this as were his older
brothers and the hired men about the place. They
all seemed to take delight in teasing him, to see what
he would do.

" He had a strong side, nevertheless, which showed
itself even then, and at times when you would least
expect it. One day when he had committed some
mischief his father called him into an inner room and
whipped him with a switch cut from a tree. The
switch broke in two or three places, and with a ges-
ture of impatience Mr. Westinghouse threw it aside,
exclaiming: 'Pshaw! This is good for nothing.'
George, who had been crying lustily, desisted long
enough to point to a leather whip which hung from
a hook on the wall, and say: 'There's a better one,
Father.' His apparent interest in having the thing
done properly if it must be done at all proved too
much for his father's sobriety, and he was spared
further punishment."

CHAPTER II
AGE TWIXT BOY AND YOUTH "

NOT long after George's birth, Mr. and Mrs. West-
inghouse, finding themselves somewhat cramped for
room in the house where they were living, removed
to a larger one a little farther down the point. On
the new premises stood a sawmill and a gristmill,
the conduct of which devolved upon Mr. Westing-
house, so that he had to hire more workmen. In the
new home three boys were born : two, Henry and
Herman, died in infancy ; the third, Henry Herman,
generally known as Herman, was named in memory
of them. Increased domestic expenses, together
with a business competition which was already mak-
ing itself felt, led Mr. Westinghouse to consider
means of reducing the cost of his machines. Though
he could make the wooden parts in his shop and do
the assembling there, he had to buy all his metal
castings in Schenectady and haul them over by wagon
- a tedious and expensive process when the roads
were out of repair. When, therefore, his business
had sufficiently expanded, he decided to remove both
factory and family to Schenectady, and in 1856 the
change was made. Two partners named Clute hav-
ing joined him, the firm bought a building formerly
used as a cement mill, on the south bank of the Erie

i4 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

Canal near the junction of Washington Avenue and
the River Road, and turned it into a shop. The
main part of this is still standing, though almost
hidden by the pretentious structures which have
grown up around it ; and one can trace from a neigh-
boring elevation what the elements have left of the
old sign, "G. Westinghouse & Co.", painted in black
letters on the rough limestone surface of the eastern
gable end.

During their residence in Schenectady, the family
lived in three houses successively. That in which
they finally settled down about 1860 is now known
as Number 16 State Street. It is a substantial dwell-
ing built of brick with stone and iron trimmings, and
has of late years received additions which about
double its original capacity. Here the older boys
grew to manhood, all developing the individuality
to be expected of the sons of so masterful a father.
As soon as they reached suitable ages, Mr. Westing-
house took them, one by one, into his shop, for a drill
in the rudiments of mechanical work. Jay, the eld-
est, was also given a course at the Polytechnic In-
stitute in Troy ; but on his return it soon became
obvious that his most appropriate place was else-
where than at the bench. He had executive ability
and a wise discernment, including a bent for managing
men without friction, which would have made their
mark in a larger field ; and before long he was trans-
ferred to a desk in the office, where he met customers,
engaged workmen, and kept the accounts. John,
next in age, had mechanical gifts of a high order,
coupled later in life with a marked religious instinct

"THE AGE 'TWIXT BOY AND YOUTH" 15

which led him to devote much of his spare time to
what we should now call "social work" among the
less favored elements in the community. He was
particularly successful in rescuing "gang" boys from
a life of crime and starting them on paths toward use-
ful citizenship. In the shop he found metal-working
more to his taste than carpentry, so he handled the
iron parts of the machines for which the wooden parts
were constructed under his father's supervision.
Albert, the third son, showed from the outset less
taste for mechanics, his chief natural inclinations
being toward books. He enjoyed good literature,
and argued ingeniously any question which arose
in the domestic circle. In the opinion of family
friends, he might have had a brilliant career if edu-
cated for the bar.

Young George, though he waked up more after the
removal to Schenectady, did not expand mentally
in the direction his father had hoped. He was sent
to school, but took only a languid interest in his
studies, though he profited somewhat by his more
enlivening companionship. Of this, however, he
could not reap the fullest advantage, as his father
was able to see little virtue in play, regarding it simply
as a form of idleness, and preferring that George
should come into the shop every day after school
hours and learn how tools were used by skilled hands.
But here came again the sense of constraint against
which every fiber of the boy's nature had always re-
volted. To stand at the elbow of a mature man for
an hour and watch the plying of saw and plane, the
boring of holes, and the driving of screws was a dreary

i6 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

occupation for him. When, for a change, he was
shifted over to the neighborhood of his brother John,
and looked on at the latter's handling of the metal
parts, he felt more at liberty to criticize, and before five
minutes had elapsed the two lads would be in a heated
controversy, in which the temper of each would oc-
casionally break bounds. If, on the other hand, he
was taken away from all the rest of the workers and
set at a bench by himself, with a pattern before him
and the material and tools at hand for making a du-
plicate of it, his attention would soon wander from
his fixed task and he would become immersed in some
mechanism of his own contriving — a little engine, or
a miniature water wheel with fanciful connections, or
what not.

Tinkering in this fashion, sometimes alone and
sometimes in company with a schoolmate of similar
tastes, he gradually accumulated a collection of in-
complete machines, which his conservative father
denounced as " trumpery" and would from time to
time consign to the scrap heap. Most of the work-
men found something amusing in this conflict of
wills ; but one day when Mr. Westinghouse had
broken up and thrown out an apparatus in the con-
struction of which George had displayed uncommon
ingenuity, a good-natured foreman whose sympathies
had been going out more and more strongly toward
the lad stayed after closing time, and, without his
employer's knowledge, fitted up a small den in the
loft of the building. This he turned over to George
for an amateur workshop, and in it the young inventor
passed many happy hours, and, near the end of his

"THE AGE TWIXT BOY AND YOUTH" 17

occupancy, designed and built a model for a rotary
engine.

After hanging about the shop for a year or two
in an irregular way, George had a serious talk with
his father. Mr. Westinghouse had been remon-
strating with him for his waste of time, and con-
trasting his indifference with the earnestness of
most of the working force, when George unexpect-
edly retorted :

" Those men are paid for whatever they do for you.
What I do brings me in nothing.5*

It was the first sign he had ever given of a thrifty
spirit, and Mr. Westinghouse improved the oppor-
tunity to ask :

"What do you consider your services worth?**

"I don't know; but they must be worth some-
thing."

"Well, George, I'll give you a chance to show what
you can do. Beginning next Monday, I'll pay you
fifty cents for every full day you put in here on some-
thing useful. Saturdays, as there is no school, you'll
be able to work all day ; other afternoons, you can
charge up your work by the hour till you have made
a whole day. How will that suit you?*'

"I'm ready to try it."

The bargain was struck on the spot, and recorded
at the cashier's desk. But George was not yet four-
teen years old, and had not lost his liking for a play-
spell now and then ; so one Saturday when several
of his mates were going off for a frolic and urged him
to accompany them, he went to his father to serve
notice that he should not be at his post that after-

i8 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

noon. Mr. Westinghouse recognized this as a proper
occasion for impressing a lesson.

"A good citizen who makes an agreement to put
in his time working," said he solemnly, " doesn't
shirk it at the first temptation. I had a job laid out,
that I expected you to start today."

He led the way to a pile of pipe which he wished
cut, and gave his son full instructions how to cut it.

'This is hard work and will take you some time,"
he added- "perhaps all your spare hours for the
first half of next week. I'm going out of town for a
few days, and when I come back I hope to find the
job about finished."

George uttered no protest. While his father had
been talking his own mind had leaped to a plan, and
before noon he had rigged up a combination of tools
which, attached to a power machine, would feed the
pipe and do the cutting automatically. Then, after
a few words of explanation to the friendly foreman,
who promised to keep an eye on things in his absence,
he threw off his overalls and joined his comrades for
their outing. When he came home he ran over to
the shop and found all the pipe cut as directed. Until
his father returned, therefore, he was free to do what
he pleased.

While naturally gratified at this exhibition of the
inventive faculty, Mr. Westinghouse became almost
hopeless of converting so volatile a boy into a steady
mechanic. One day he mentioned the matter to a
neighbor, a clergyman, who suggested that perhaps
the lad might do better at something which would
call into play his unusually lively imagination.

" THE AGE TWIXT BOY AND YOUTH" 19

"I've tried him at all sorts of things," answered
Mr. Westinghouse, with a shade of disappointment
in his tone, "but his one desire seems to be to avoid
work ; and you know as well as I do that no young
man will ever amount to anything who won't work."

11 It would take a good deal to convince me," said
the other, "that the laziest boy in the world couldn't
be interested in something, if you gave him a wide
enough range of choice."

"You'd like to make a preacher of him, perhaps?"

The minister ignored the seeming irony of the
suggestion.

"No, I shouldn't try to 'make' him that or any-
thing else. If I have measured him correctly he isn't
the kind of boy you can shape against his will. I
think you will save time if you let him do his own shap-
ing, and confine yourself to encouraging him when he
finds out what he is best fitted to do."

He was moving away, but Mr. Westinghouse de-
tained him by laying a hand on his shoulder.

"Look here, Dominie, all I want is to do what is
right, and not to make a mistake which we'll feel
sorry for later. Now, you've started me thinking.
Tell me what you'd do if the boy were yours."

"Well, I suppose I should not press him into spend-
ing all his leisure time in the shop. Let him get out
and play more. That will free his mind, and by and
by he'll lay hold of an idea that fascinates him, and
he'll follow it till it lands him somewhere ; he merely
hasn't yet found his place in the world. Shall you
send him to college?"

"He can go if he cares to."

20 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

"That's right. I'd even advise him, if I were you,
to take a course. College is sometimes a great eye
opener."

From that day forward George was allowed a little
more time to spend as he chose. To his father's sur-
prise, he did not waste it absolutely in doing nothing,
though he fell into what was, in the elder's eyes, the
next worst thing — a habit of tinkering for hours to-
gether on some toy device. His most ambitious
amusement, perhaps, was playing with a little boat
which he launched on the canal, equipped with a
screw propeller engine built almost wholly by his
own hands. Though it was never evident to his
father or brothers just what he was trying to do with
this craft, there appeared to be lurking in his own
mind some conception of a more efficient motor than
that which had served him as a model. Now and
then his evolutions with his boat would result in its
tipping over, but he never suffered any damage more
severe than a soaking, for he had learned to take care
of himself pretty well in the water. And thereby
hangs a tale which we may as well recall in passing.

One of the young men in the Westinghouse works
was William Ratcliffe, with whom for some time
George worked at the same bench. They grew to be
fast friends, and used to put in their infrequent holi-
days at some job of their own concocting. Mr. Rat-
cliffe still owns a sleigh which they built thus in part-
nership, and which is as good today as on the day they
put it together. They also took a fancy at one time
to make violins. George had studied the mechanism
of one, and believed that he could not only construct

"THE AGE TWIXT BOY AND YOUTH" 21

an instrument but learn to play it if he could find the
right teacher. A few practical efforts in that line,
however, convinced him that he had no ear, and he
gave up the notion.

Ratcliffe was fond of swimming and soon taught
George the art ; and in the warm weather the pair
used to frequent a spot in the Mohawk which was a
favorite with the town boys, who varied their frolics
in the water with a few on land, like tying one an-
other's clothes into hard knots, or spiriting them away
and leaving the owners to prowl around for a half-
hour unclad. To guard against such tricks, the more
prudent of the bathers fell into the way of hiding
their garments in remote places. George became
so enthusiastic about swimming and diving that dur-
ing the season his mind was full of these sports when-
ever not immediately occupied with the work he had
in hand. One night his parents were awakened by
a sound as of some heavy body falling in an adjoining
chamber. Running in there, they found George
squirming about on the floor stark naked. Their
questions at first evoked only a stupid attempt at
response ; but, as his mind gradually cleared, he ex-
plained that he had been dreaming of being on the
river bank, and, divesting himself of his scant rai-
ment, he had dived from his bed into what he imag-
ined was deep water, and by a narrow chance had
escaped without broken bones. Then came a search
for his nightgown, which, under the spell of his dream,
he had taken pains to hide from his prankish play-
mates. All over the upper story of the house prowled
father, mother, and son, peering into every nook and

22 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

cranny which seemed likely to have attracted him,
but in vain : and it was not till several days after-
ward that the missing garment was accidentally dis-
covered, squeezed behind a trunk which stood flat
against the wall.

The school George attended was in a building at
the corner of Union and College streets, which, hav-
ing passed through a half-century of vicissitudes, had
little about it to gratify the eye or stimulate the am-
bition of the young people under its roof. To his
father's suggestion that he prepare for college, George
had assented less because it appealed to him than
because he had no particular argument to raise
against it. A few of his schoolfellows of this period
are still living in Schenectady, and remember George
as a rather inept pupil. It was not that his mind
was dull ; but the books he was required to study
failed as a rule to stir his imagination, and he had only
an indifferent gift of self-expression. However good
an understanding he might have of a subject, as soon
as he was called to his feet before his class, his power
of translating thought into words seemed to suffer a
temporary paralysis, and he would stumble through
the exercise as if he were trusting wholly to guesswork.
Penmanship and spelling gave him a deal of trouble,
and he found grammar a deadly burden. This puz-
zled most of his teachers, because his logical faculties,
when applied to something which had captured his
fancy, struck them as considerably above the average.
He was also keen as to everything mathematical,
and in free-hand drawing he excelled all competitors
with circles that were round, and lines that were

"THE AGE TWIXT BOY AND YOUTH" 23

straight, and angles that measured the required num-
ber of degrees.

Only one member of the school faculty appears to
have fully comprehended him. This was a woman
who combined unusual skill as an instructor with a
most attractive personality and a sympathetic man-
ner. George surrendered himself unreservedly to
her gentle sway. She seemed to recognize in him a
certain quality not found in the other boys she
taught, and to have an intuitive sense of the reasons
why he hated one thing and liked another with such
intensity ; and she adapted her treatment of him to
these peculiarities. As a result, he was almost ro-
mantic in his attachment to her, and the impress
she made on his life was always gratefully acknowl-
edged by him, his appreciation manifesting itself
in many kindnesses he was able to extend to her
in later years.

In the midst of his preparatory schooling came on
the Civil War, and George, though only fourteen years
of age, was smitten with the prevalent martial fever.
So were two of his brothers, Albert and John.
Mr. Westinghouse was an ardent patriot, but he
knew little of the spirit with which the Southern
States had entered the Confederacy, and believed,
like so many other loyalists in the North, that the
hostilities would not last long after the Government
had made a real show of strength. Hence, when
the older boys expressed their purpose to enlist, he
advised them to wait a while, and they reluctantly
consented. John persisted, however, in hovering
about the recruiting officers who came that way, and

24 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

used to regale George, as they worked together on
Saturdays, with a rehearsal of the war stories gleaned
from these men. George had gradually developed
a preference for working in metals over working in
wood ; John had encouraged this tendency, and they
had formed a habit of cooperating in various small-
scale engineering enterprises. Their talks about sol-
diering had stimulated George to a degree where he
was ready to do something desperate for the sake of
getting a taste of the real experience. In his own
mind he reasoned out the situation about like this :
Albert and John both wished to go to war but were
prevented because they had been so imprudent as to
mention the subject in the family circle ; his wise
plan, therefore, would be to avoid interference by
holding his tongue till the psychological moment,
and then running away.

He was tall for his age, and uncommonly mature
of countenance ; and though his figure was spare,
his large bones and good muscles indicated that he
would in due time acquire a sturdy build. Unfor-
tunately for his project, he was by nature too candid
to be a successful secret-keeper; and this trait, as
well as a boyish craving for companionship, led him
to take half a dozen of his best friends into his con-
fidence and propose that they all run away together
and not return till they had distinguished themselves
by deeds of valor on the battlefield. The suggestion
was not generally received with warmth ; many of
the boys agreed that it would be a great lark, but did
not dare invite the parental wrath by so bold a de-
fiance ; others thought they might try it later, after

"THE AGE TWIXT BOY AND YOUTH" 25

they saw how their home-folk took the news of some
other fellow's escapade. When the time for a final
decision arrived, only one comrade was ready to go
with him the whole length, and at once.

One morning Mrs. Westinghouse had occasion to
call upon George to do an errand for her, but was
unable to find him anywhere about the house. She
felt sure that he had not gone to school, for his strap-
ful of books still lay where he had tossed it the after-
noon before. Having looked for him upstairs and
down, and called his name repeatedly from front
windows and back, she gave up the search. A neigh-
bor came in breathless, with the information that
George had been seen that morning walking toward
the railroad station with a carpetbag in his hand,
and apparently trying to avoid observation.

"Are you positive it was my George?" demanded
the mother, too astonished to trust her hearing.

" There is no question about it," the visitor assured
her; "and one of the boys next door says George
has been telling him for some time that he was watch-
ing his chance to run away and go to war."

In another minute Mrs. Westinghouse had dis-
patched her housemaid to the Works with a message
to her husband, apprising him of these unexpected
developments. The good man did not seem at all
upset, but, with a quick glance at the clock, reached
for his hat and quitted the building.

George, meanwhile, having put into a carpetbag
a few essential articles of clothing, had slipped away
soon after breakfast and taken his course through
back streets and alleys to the station, where an ac-

26 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

commodation train was made up daily for the East.
He found his co-conspirator already on hand, though
not quite so enthusiastic as at their latest previous
meeting, and, as they had a few minutes to wait,
George improved the time by pumping fresh vigor
into the other boy's resolution ; then, the train having
drawn up on the track in front of them, they were
able to enter the nearest car and settle down in a
forward seat headed for their hearts' desire. The
minutes lagged like hours while the adult passengers
climbed on one by one, and George had considerable
difficulty in keeping his back turned toward the rear
of the car in such a way as to elude recognition by
any of his parents' friends who might be traveling
that morning.

At last the fateful instant came. The conductor
sounded his brisk warning outside, "All aboard!",
entered the car in which the boys sat, and promptly
reached for the bell rope. Before he had a chance to
pull it, however, appeared another actor on the scene.
He was a man about fifty years of age, of stalwart
frame, clad in a gray cloth suit and a soft hat, and
wearing an expression on his face which was certainly
serious and perhaps a trifle stern. Boarding the
train as if he owned it, he called to the conductor to
wait a moment. Everybody in the car turned to
see who thus peremptorily held it back — everybody,
that is, except George : he did not need to turn, for
he had recognized the voice, and a sudden chill had
run down his spine as he heard it. He was conscious
that the newcomer was taking long strides through
the car from rear to front ; then he glanced up to see

"THE AGE TWIXT BOY AND YOUTH" 27

his father standing before him, with a beckoning
finger outstretched. Mr. Westinghouse was not at
all excited in manner, or apparently out of breath,
though he had been obliged to hurry more than
was his wont. He uttered no reproaches, he did
not even raise his voice above its ordinary pitch
as he said: " George, I guess you'd better come
back home !"

As was customary with any one to whom Mr.
Westinghouse began a suggestion with his charac-
teristic "I guess you'd better," no time was wasted
about complying. There was no debate, no ques-
tioning, no explanation or other dilatory recourse.
George, thoroughly crestfallen, fished out his carpet-
bag from under the seat and followed his father to
the rear door and down the platform steps, looking
to neither right nor left. He was dimly aware that
his martial-minded companion was treading closely
on his heels, and that the feet of the trio were barely
firm on the ground before the belated bell rang, the
whistle responded, and the train which was to have
borne him to glory was off without him.

Mr. Westinghouse walked home with his son and
saw him start for school, where a tardy mark was
waiting for him ; this he did not mind very much,
but there was also a sardonic grin on the faces of some
of the mates to whom he had confided his plans, and
this he did mind a good deal. However, his feelings
were considerably salved when he met his family at
the noonday meal and observed their general dis-
position to ignore the incident till, just before they
were leaving the table, his father said: " Perhaps,

28 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

George, when you are old enough to know your own
mind and understand what it all means — if the war
lasts till then — you may be free to go. But don't
count on it too surely. I hope there'll be an end to
the fighting long before that."

CHAPTER III
SOLDIER AND SAILOR, STUDENT AND SWAIN

BY the summer of 1862, Mr. Westinghouse had
changed his mind about the duration of the war, and
in August Albert enlisted in the Sixth New York
Volunteer Cavalry. During the ill-fated advance
toward Richmond in the spring of 1863 he was taken
prisoner at Spottsylvania Court House, but was
paroled a few days later, and in September was trans-
ferred to the Second New York Veteran Volunteer
Cavalry, with a lieutenant's commission. Mean-
while conscription had begun, a drawing was an-
nounced to be held in Schenectady, and John was
able to face his father with the fact that the only
alternative now lay between offering his services to
the Government voluntarily and taking his chance
of having to render them under compulsion. Mr.
Westinghouse admitted that this was true, and with-
drew all further objection to his volunteering. He
therefore took immediate advantage of an offer, made
him some time before, of an appointment as an Acting
Third Assistant Engineer in the navy, and set off for
Washington to see about it.

George, spurred to fresh activity by John's ex-
ample, reopened the subject with his father by a

30 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

reminder that he was now nearly seventeen, sound
and strong, and presumably as well able as he would
be later to judge for himself in such matters.

"Perhaps you are right, my son," assented
Mr. Westinghouse, and that afternoon George packed
his effects for the next move.

As John had procured his commission through his
father's partners, one of whom possessed consider-
able influence with their Representative in Congress,
George went to them to find out whether they could
not get for him also an appointment to a position
where he would have machinery to handle, and an
assignment to the same ship on which John was serv-
ing. When they told him that that was out of the
question, he decided to try for the army instead, in
the hope that by some good luck he might find his
way to where his brother Albert was. Accordingly,
he sought a recruiting station in New York, where
he laid his desires before the officer in charge.

"I'm afraid," remarked that gentleman, eyeing
him critically, and with a half-repressed smile which
George could not then understand, "we can't do all
you wish right away. Just now it looks as if Lee's
army may break through into Pennsylvania, and we
are busy enlisting an emergency force to drive him
back if he attempts it. You've never served before,
you say?"

"No," said George, "I'm only seventeen, and my
father's kept me back till now."

The officer's face sobered again, and his voice was
very kindly as he replied :

"I see — I see. Well, how would you like to try

GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
From a War Time Portrait

SOLDIER, SAILOR, STUDENT, AND SWAIN 31

the thirty-days' service for a start ? It will give you
a little experience, and show you how well soldiering
agrees with you. We're trying to fill up the Twelfth.
Will you sign?"

" What position can I get in the regiment, if I do ?"

" I fancy you will have to take a gun and a knap-
sack, my boy, until you've proved what's in you.
Once in the field, it will depend on yourself how far
up you climb."

"All right. That suits me."

George signed the roll and dropped into his place
at the tail of a squad who were about to be looked
over by the surgeon. Two days later he was off for
the front.

At the end of his brief experimental term, which
was marked by no exciting episode, he was more de-
sirous than ever of seeing some real soldier life ; so
he offered himself as a three-years' recruit for the
Sixteenth New York Volunteer Cavalry. Here he
renewed his inquiry about a commission.

"You are rather young to shoulder the responsi-
bilities of an officer," was the answer.

''But I've already been broken in," he pleaded,
"and I've learned a thing or two about taking care
of men."

" Why don't your raise a company of your own, then,
and command it?"

" I would in a minute, if I had the chance."

"That can be managed, I dare say, as far as the
chance is concerned. Where would you go for your
men?"

"Back in Schoharie County, where I was born.

32 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

I know lots of fellows out there who'd enlist if we only
got hold of them the right way."

To his surprise and pleasure, George received the
next morning an assignment to recruiting duty in the
district he had named, coupled with the condition
that, if he brought back fifty acceptable men, he
would be recommended for a lieutenancy. He went
off in high spirits, visiting first his old home, Central
Bridge, which he found pretty well stripped of avail-
able material, though two men promised to join his
troop. At Schoharie, Middleburg, and other well-
settled points in the county, he discovered a like
state of affairs. Then he pushed for the outlying
country. A favorite resort of his boyhood had been
the picturesque neighborhood of Fultonham, where
Lorenzo Stewart, an old and valued employee of his
father's, was living. Stewart took a lively interest
in George's errand, but held out few hopes of success.

"I suspect this part of the county is short of the
kind of young men you are after," he explained,
going over the names, one by one, of the farmer boys
they both knew. Most of the eligibles, it appeared,
had already gone south with the I34th New York.

"All right," said George, "then I'll try my luck
with the slouters."

"Slouters" was the cant term used locally to desig-
nate a thriftless class of people who lived back among
the hills, subsisting ordinarily nobody knew how,
and descending into the valleys only when cold or
hunger forced them to seek a short job of work.

"It will do you no good to go there, either,"
Stewart assured him. "John Cater has got ahead

SOLDIER, SAILOR, STUDENT, AND SWAIN 33

of you. He came back from the army, all dressed
up and sleek-looking, and carried off every slouter
in sight."

But George was out for game, and would not let
himself be diverted from his quest. Stewart stood
by him manfully, and took pains to see that he should
be included in all the "apple cuts" and other rustic
merrymakings held thereabout during his stay. The
fine-looking young soldier in his smart uniform
created no slight flutter among the assembled
maidens, and put their swains to the blush for some
excuse for not themselves wearing the blue. George
thoroughly enjoyed his visit among the scenes of his
childhood, now that he had become a person of more
consequence. It was a sore disappointment, how-
ever, that he could pick up only his two recruits at
Central Bridge and fifteen elsewhere in the county ;
but with this small contingent he reported at head-
quarters, nursing the hope that a commission might
be issued to him in view of all he had tried to do.

"Too bad, my boy, but you can't turn seventeen
into fifty," was the good-humored but positive re-
sponse to all his arguments. Back to the war, there-
fore, went George again as a private soldier. Of
what he did and how he fared in his second term of
service, not much is known, beyond the fact that the
experience was in some respects disappointing. He
had joined the cavalry expecting that it would be
easier to ride than to walk, but was disillusioned by
the discovery that he would have to take care of his
horse every night before getting any rest for himself.
His campaigning was confined to northern Virginia ;

34 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

it consisted chiefly of scouting duty, designed to out-
wit the tricks of Mosby's guerrillas and involving a
maximum of hard work for a minimum of glory.

Although in later years he enjoyed his participation
in the war as a reminiscence, he never volunteered it
as a topic of conversation. When some other veteran
of the citizen soldiery was dining with him they would
exchange recollections, or when some of his more
youthful guests would question him he would talk
most pleasantly about his army life, telling how he
and his camp mates soaked their hard-tack in frying-
pan grease to make it eatable, and cooked bacon and
chicken in the open fire wrapped in. paper and
smothered in clay ; how they captured a pig against
orders ; how he once made a bread pudding with his
own hands and how good it tasted ; what happened
to him on picket duty, and the like. To all who
heard him tell these stories, it was a subject of regret
that during his military service he kept no diary or
other personal memoranda. He was not fond of
composition, and only a few fragments of his sparse
correspondence are still preserved.

From a letter sent home in December by a Sche-
nectady boy in the Second New York Veteran Cav-
alry, we learn that George had recently been at Camp
Stoneman, near Washington, to visit his brother
Albert, then a lieutenant with a splendid record for
gallantry and efficiency. From the same note it
appears that a man-of-war had just arrived at the
Washington Navy Yard with John Westinghouse
aboard, and that the brothers were to have a reunion.
Odds and ends of information, gathered from various

SOLDIER, SAILOR, STUDENT, AND SWAIN 35

sources and pieced together, indicate that all three
boys were furloughed to spend Christmas with their
friends in the North. A family gathering was to be
held at the house of a relative in New York, and the
brothers, with a young cousin, were on the way to it
when, as they passed the barracks in City Hall Park,
Albert left his companions to enter the building for a
brief errand. He rejoined them in a few minutes
with an air of deep concern.

" I can't go with you, after all," he said. " I must
return to camp at once." With that he shook hands
all round in farewell and reentered the barracks.
Their glimpse of his receding figure as the door closed
behind him was the last any of the party ever saw of
him. A little later he and his men sailed for New
Orleans.

On Christmas day, 1864, just one year after the
marred festivity, it fell to Herman, then a lad of
eleven, to break to his parents the news of Albert's
death in the battle of McLeod's Mills, Louisiana.
He received it from a neighbor who had lost a son in
the same fight. Mr. Westinghouse bore the blow
with the stoic resignation of a man who had long ago
counted the cost ; Mrs. Westinghouse was terribly
broken by it, and was never the same woman after-
ward. Albert had been distinctly the " mother's
boy " of the little group.

A few months before this, George, who still had a
yearning to try his hand at marine engineering, had
decided to shift from the army to the navy. Soon
after joining the cavalry he had risen to be a corporal,
but promotion beyond that threatened to be slow;

36 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

and on December I, 1864, by virtue of his good mili-
tary record, and of an examination which, thanks to
his mechanical training, he passed with marked credit,
he was appointed an Acting Third Assistant Engineer,
and ordered at once to duty on the ship Muscoota.
Later he served on the Stars and Stripes, and in the
Potomac flotilla. His friend Ratcliffe, loyal to their
youthful companionship, lent him a lathe to keep on
shipboard, and with its aid he improved his odd
hours in building a small model of a sawbuck engine.

The next year the war ended. George came home
in the summer, and John, who meanwhile had been
promoted one grade, followed late in the autumn.
George showed a marked improvement as the result
of his experience in the armed service. Before leav-
ing home he had been considerably developed on his
social side and learned to control his temper, through
his association with so many boys of his own age at
the high school. To this his discipline as soldier
and sailor had added the habit of standing straighter
and bearing himself with dignity, and of applying a
keener observation to everything. He never seemed
to be seeking for new ideas, but absorbed them wher-
ever he went, and after they had been duly digested
they always bore fruit in experiment. His father
was pleased with his increased manliness and quick-
ened senses, but did not understand his mental pro-
cesses much better than of old ; to all his family,
indeed, he still seemed a good deal of a dreamer.

It was doubtless this conception which prompted
his father to remind him, within a few days of his
return, of his agreement to take a college course. He

SOLDIER, SAILOR, STUDENT, AND SWAIN 37

did not need the reminder, having already begun
preparation for his academic martyrdom by taking
some of his old school textbooks from the shelf on
which they had lain untouched during his absence,
and running over a few subjects on which he felt un-
certain. The records of Union College show that
he was admitted to the scientific department, sopho-
more class, on the fifteenth of September, 1865. The
college then contained one hundred and ninety
students, all of whom, according to the published
rules, were expected to live on the campus, though
in George's case this requirement was relaxed at his
father's solicitation so that he could live at home.

Of the personality of George at this period we glean
a hint here and there which shows that it must have
impressed the minds of his mates rather deeply in
order to have enabled them to remember it as well
as some of them do after the lapse of a half century.
The Reverend Walter Scott of Boston, for example,
pictures him as a tall, well-proportioned young man,
with an air of self-reliance and an unusually mature
appearance. "I recall," says Mr. Scott, "his ener-
getic walk across the campus to the engineering rooms.
He had the manner of a man with a definite purpose,
pursuing a straight course toward that end. I think
he mingled little with the students, owing probably
to his absorption in mechanical studies and also to
the fact that he had no room in the college buildings."

Other contemporaries bear like witness, though
none whom I have been able to reach has gone
much into detail as to George's mode of life before
and after his working hours, his associations, or his

38 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

nontechnical tastes. One reason for this perhaps
lies in the shortness of his collegiate career, for
he left about the Christmas holidays. His class
register gives him a mark of 12.50 for the fall term,
the highest mark won by any one for the year being
25.50. These figures are not especially enlightening,
as the scale on which they were based cannot now be
ascertained; but the weight of evidence indicates
that he did not distinguish himself in the sphere of
book-learning. He was repeatedly absent with no
better excuse than his desire to look on at some me-
chanical operation then in progress in the town or
neighborhood, appearing quite oblivious of the fact
that college classes could not be conducted on a basis
of haphazard attendance.

The lines of study pursued during the fall term
were the French and German languages, solid geom-
etry, and English rhetoric, essays, and vocal train-
ing. In the geometry sessions he seems to have had
no difficulty in keeping his attention fixed, but the
English branches were tiresome to him. For the
foreign tongues he had neither taste nor talent, and
made no secret of the fact. Professor William Wells,
who taught them, used to declare as the frviit of a
long experience that it was folly to attempt to proph-
esy the man from the boy, citing the case of young
Westinghouse as his most potent illustration. "He
was my despair/' Doctor Wells would explain. " Not
only was it impossible to stir his active interest in the
work of the class, but, while the other boys were
struggling with German syntax or French pronuncia-
tion, he would amuse himself making pencil drawings

SOLDIER, SAILOR, STUDENT, AND SWAIN 39

on his wristbands. His sketches were always of
locomotives, stationary engines, or something of that
sort."

In view of the way he had spent so much of his
time, George was not greatly surprised at receiving
a message one day from Doctor Hickok, the acting
head of the college, asking him to call at the presi-
dent's office, and he responded in expectation of a
severe scolding if nothing worse. It did surprise
him to have the Doctor greet him in the pleasantest
manner, invite him to be seated, and open their con-
versation with the inquiry :

" Westinghouse, how do you like college, now that
you have given it a little trial?"

For a moment George was at a loss for an answer ;
he could not honestly say that he liked it, though on
the other hand he was fair-minded enough to realize
that this was less the fault of the college than his own.

"I dare say I should like it very well," he said,
after a short pause, "if I had time to give my mind
to my studies." He then proceeded to explain at
length certain inventions he was engaged in trying
to develop.

It was now Doctor Hickok's turn to be taken at a
disadvantage ; he had not looked for such frankness,
or for so lucid an exposition of the mechanical prin-
ciples involved in George's plans.

" After what you have told me," said he, "it is
plain that you would be wasting your time and your
gifts in staying here and pursuing studies in which
you have no heart. I will see your father at once,
and put your case before him."

40 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

George drew a deep sigh of relief. If so high an
authority as Doctor Hickok advised his following
his natural bent, he felt sure of being released from
his compact and allowed to return to the occupations
he loved. This assumption proved correct, though
Mr. Westinghouse shook his head sadly over the
collapse of his hope of making George a scholar — a
hope born of his fancied discovery that his son
would never be good for much of anything else !
But, pitiful as the admission of failure might be, he
granted it with the best grace he could, and told
George he might go to work at the bench. George
hesitated.

"Well, what's the matter ?" asked Mr. Westing-
house.

"We might as well settle the wage now, Father. "

"You can have the same pay you were getting
when you left off — a dollar a day, wasn't it?"

"Nine shillings. That was enough for the boy
I was before I went away ; but I am practically a
man now, and if I am worth anything I am worth a
man's wages. Give me two dollars a day and I stay
here ; otherwise I go where I can get that."

" I had intended, George, to start you again at the
old figure and give you an opportunity to show how
much more you were worth to the business. If you
had done well, you would have earned promotion
soon. However, I am willing to give you a trial at
two dollars, on the understanding that if you fall
short of what is expected of you we go back to nine
shillings."

Apparently George laid himself out to prove his

SOLDIER, SAILOR, STUDENT, AND SWAIN 41

value to his father, lending a hand wherever he
could be useful. Regardless of what he might be
doing, however, his mind was busy with one special
topic, of which the suggestion had grown out of his
service in the navy. Before he left home he had built
a rotary engine, which was novel enough in some of
its features to secure a patent. His life on ship-
board, though short, had enabled him to study
marine engineering on its practical side, and all his
investigations had tended to confirm his original
belief that in this field, if not everywhere, the rotary
principle was bound to supersede the reciprocating
in the construction of motive machinery. Now and
then his restlessness would get the better of him, and
he would grasp at the chance of going away from
Schenectady to transact an outside negotiation for
the firm.

It was while returning from one such expedition
to Albany that he was held up by an accident of not
infrequent occurrence in those days of small rails and
light rolling stock. Two rear cars of a train running
just ahead of his had jumped the track, and all traffic
on that section was blocked for two hours. George
and a fellow traveler spent most of the time watching
the wrecking crew as they grappled with one car after
another, painfully prying it back, inch by inch, till
it could be finally jacked over to its place on the track.
As the work neared its end, George, who had been
unusually silent for several minutes, remarked with
some impatience : "That was a poorly handled job ! "

"It was tedious, " admitted his friend, "but that
couldn't be helped. "

42 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

"Yes, it could. They could have done the whole
thing in fifteen minutes by clamping a pair of rails
to the track, and running them off at an angle like a
frog, so as to come up even against the wheels of the
nearest derailed car. Then, by hitching an engine to
the car, they could have shunted it back into place.
In fact, it wouldn't be a bad idea for a railroad com-
pany to put together a car-replacer on that principle,
and have it on hand for use in emergencies."

"Why don't you make one and sell it to the
railroads?"

"That's a good idea. I'll do it."

Before he went to bed that night George had
thought out his plan. The next morning he made
his drawings, and as soon as he had prepared a model
he carried it to his father. Mr. Westinghouse
examined it, but without expressing great enthusiasm.

"It will cost money to carry out that scheme,"
he said as he handed back the model. " If it's worth
anything, somebody will steal your idea — "

"I shall patent it, of course," George broke in.

"Yes, yes, I know. But you will have to pay the
Government's charges and your lawyer's fees, and
then will come the expense of manufacturing and
marketing. You'll let yourself in for a pretty penny
before you're through ; and where's the money
coming from ?"

"I thought probably you'd lend it to me."

"My son, if I have learned one lesson in life, it is,
to stick to things I know something about. Now,
I do know threshing machines, and horse powers,
and all that, but I don't know railroads. Neither

SOLDIER, SAILOR, STUDENT, AND SWAIN 43

do you. If you are bound to go into this business,
I don't suppose I can stop you ; but you will have to
make my share a very small one."

George realized that when his father took such a
stand it was time thrown away to argue the question.
But his belief that he had a good idea had not been
weakened by the discussion, and, with his father's
little contribution in his pocket, he seized his first
opportunity to call upon several men in the city who
were recognized as shrewd investors and laid his plan
before them. Some put him aside with slight atten-
tion, but two of his business acquaintances were
willing to risk small sums in his venture. A part-
nership was thus formed, each of the two capitalists
contributing five thousand dollars and George his
father's modicum of money and the right to use his
patent. Under their contract, also, he was to travel
for the concern.

The work done on this device had brought him into
contact with other problems of railway construction
and operation, among them being the making of a
more durable frog than the cast-iron ones then in
use. This part of a railroad track is subjected to
severe service, and the wear upon it is so great that
frequent replacing of the frogs was necessary, in-
volving a heavy cost for material and labor and seri-
ous interference with traffic during replacement.
The remedy Westinghouse proposed was the em-
ployment of cast steel instead of cast iron and the
making of the frog reversible, so that when one side
was worn out it could be turned over. By the com-
bined use of the more durable metal and the feature

44 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

of reversal, the life of the frog was increased more
than twentyfold, resulting in its very extended em-
ployment. The right to use his patent on this in-
vention he assigned to the firm, as he had his replacer
patent.

In connection with this development, it is inter-
esting to record the fact that Westinghouse was
probably the first man, in our country at least, and
possibly in the world, to produce steel castings,
as that term is now applied. This is an art that has
very slowly developed through many difficulties
until it has attained a most important status in metal-
lurgical production. He knew nothing about the
subject except what he had picked up by scant oppor-
tunities for observation in early attempts to have his
car-replacers and frogs made at existing steel plants ;
but he saw no reason why steel castings could not
be produced, and so went ahead with his plans to the
extent that was necessary for his particular purpose.

The experimental car-replacers and frogs were
made at Troy, New York, and at Pompton, New
Jersey. It was after he had invented the frog, but
before his patent on it had been issued, that, having
been to Pompton to ascertain what arrangements he
could make for its manufacture, he was starting for
home from New York by the Hudson River Railroad,
when he met with an adventure which gave a fresh
zest to his life. His train was crowded with pas-
sengers. He could have found a seat in the smoking
car, but as he did not smoke he preferred trying his
fortune elsewhere. Not until he reached the last
car did he find a vacant place, and that was beside

SOLDIER, SAILOR, STUDENT, AND SWAIN 45

a young woman whose appearance attracted him
instantly. In a few minutes he had engaged her in
conversation and drawn forth the information that
her home was in Roxbury, New York, but that she
had friends in Brooklyn, and was now on her way
to visit relatives in Kingston. Shortly before she
reached her destination, he expressed the hope that
she would allow him to continue their acquaintance.
The modest hesitancy with which she received the
suggestion reminded him that she knew nothing
about him except what he had incidentally let fall in
the course of their chat ; and, with characteristic
resourcefulness, he tore a page from his notebook
and scribbled on it the addresses of three or four
substantial persons who could answer any questions
concerning his antecedents and character. She ap-
peared to be reassured by his manner, for she con-
sented to his calling upon her, and when he re-
mounted the car platform after helping her off he
was as jubilant as if he had won a great triumph.
The first thing he did on reaching Schenectady was
to seek the pastor of the church he attended, and ask
him to write a letter to the young lady, stating who
he was, and the standing of the Westinghouses in the
community.

His family was struck with his light-heartedness
when he came to the tea table that evening, and one
of his sisters rallied him a little on it.

11 You look as if you had won a prize in a lottery,"
she said.

"I am not sure that I have won it yet," he re-
sponded, "but I think I have a good chance."

46 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

Mr. and Mrs. Westinghouse exchanged quick
glances. Both disapproved strongly of anything in
the nature of gambling, and were somewhat startled
at his confession. He let the whole party puzzle
over his case for a few minutes before he explained :

"I've met the woman I am going to marry."

Mr. Westinghouse regarded him with a quizzical
air.

'The woman you are going to marry, eh?" he
commented, with mock seriousness. "And are you
proposing to support her, or is she to support you ?"

"I've no fear that I can't take care of a wife," was
George's self-sufficient answer.

''You haven't built your house yet, I suppose?"

"No, we may come here for a while and build the
house later."

"Ah!"

That was all anybody said at the time, but that
George was in earnest was evident when, after two
visits to Kingston and three to Roxbury, he an-
nounced to his mother that he was the accepted lover
of Marguerite Erskine Walker ; that they had de-
cided to be married in Brooklyn on the eighth of the
following August, and that he would like to bring
his wife home till they could find a house suited to
their needs and purse.

GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE AND MRS. WESTINGHOUSE
DURING THEIR EARLIER DAYS OF WEDDED LIFE

CHAPTER IV
OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS AT THE DOOR

To the reader whose traveling days have fallen
within the last quarter-century, the air brake in use
on the modern railroad is so much a matter of course
that it might have existed from the beginning of
time. How recent an invention it is, and what a
revolution it has accomplished, can be appreciated
only by those of us who can remember the conditions
that prevailed before its coming.

Hand-braking was both difficult and dangerous.
A brakeman stood between every two cars on a pas-
senger train, and, at a point about half a mile from
the next stopping place, he would begin to turn a
horizontal handwheel on one platform so as to
tighten slowly a chain that set the brakes on a single
pair of wheels. When he had wound the chain taut
he would step across to the opposite platform and
repeat the operation on the handwheel there. No
matter how skilled all the brakemen on a train might
be, their work was always uneven, for no two cars
would respond to the brake with the same promptness,
and the slower ones would bump into the quicker,
adding to the hazards of the task. A freight train
was harder to care for than a passenger train, because

48 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

the brakemen had to ride on top of the cars in all
weathers, with the liability of being knocked off by
a low bridge, frozen in midwinter, or, on windy or
slippery nights, missing their footing and falling
between the cars.

These possibilities and others were brought vividly
before the mind of young Westinghouse one day
when he was on his way from Schenectady to Troy
to meet an engagement at the Bessemer Steel Works.
His train coming to a sudden standstill midway be-
tween stations, he got off, with several fellow pas-
sengers, to ascertain the cause of the delay. A
short distance ahead the distorted hulks of two loco-
motives, and a stretch of track strewn with over-
turned or broken cars and the remains of what had
been a solid cargo of merchandise, told their story :
two heavily loaded freight trains had come together
with a crash. The day was clear, the roadbed at
that point was level, the track was well railed and
smooth and straight ; it seemed as if a collision could
hardly have occurred except through gross careless-
ness. Westinghouse suggested as much to one of
the company's employees who was standing near,
supervising the clearing of the track.

"No/* answered the man, "the engineers saw each
other, and both tried their best to stop, but they
couldn't."

"Why not? Wouldn't the brakes work?"

"Oh, yes, but there wasn't time. You can't stop
a train in a moment."

This remark rang in the young man's ears the rest
of the day. Fortunately, no lives had been lost in

OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS AT THE DOOR 49

the wreck, but his train was delayed so long that he
missed his appointment, and the annoyance gave
pungency to questions which kept rising in his mind :
They hadn't time? Why not? Suppose one of
those trains had been full of passengers instead of
freight ? Suppose it had been the train he was riding
on ? Here was a subject even better worth studying
than the replacement of derailed cars, which had
commanded so much of his attention as the result
of an earlier accident.

Obviously, the key to the collision lay in the lapse
of time between the "down brakes" whistle and the
clamping of the brake shoes on the wheels. The
engineers doubtless acted quickly enough when they
apprehended the danger ; but, if, instead of sounding
a signal to several other men, these two had been
able to apply the brakes instantly themselves, the
possibilities of damage would at least have been re-
duced to a minimum. How could this be made
practicable ?

The first idea that occurred to him was to connect
the brakes on the several cars with the coupling
mechanism in such a way that when the steam was
shut off and the brakes were set on the locomotive
by the engineer, the consequent closing-up of the
cars would automatically set their brakes also. A
few experiments, however, with a miniature ap-
paratus rigged up in his father's shop, convinced him
that the scheme would be quite unworkable if the
ounces of his little model were translated into the
tons of a real train. Walking one Sunday afternoon
past a siding on which stood a few idle freight cars,

50 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

another thought came to him : Why would it not be
perfectly feasible to extend underneath the whole
train a long brake chain, which could be suddenly
drawn taut by some device close to the hand of the
engineer, and thus bring all the brakes into action?
While he was still pondering this question, business
called him to Chicago. Here he was talking one day
with Superintendent Towne of the Chicago, Bur-
lington and Quincy Railroad, when the conversation
turned upon increasing the safety of trains by better
braking facilities.

"Come in tomorrow afternoon," he said to West-
inghouse, as they parted, "and we'll go down to the
yard where they make up our prize train, the Aurora
Accommodation. We've put a brake on that which
seems to do all that can be done in the brake line.
I'll have the inventor over to meet you, and we'll
inspect the train together. You'll find him an in-
teresting fellow, and he'll talk brake with you from
morning till night if you'll let him."

Westinghouse gladly accepted the invitation. He
found the inventor sociability itself, but when he let
drop a remark that he, too, was thinking over a
braking contrivance, it was not very hospitably
received.

"You are throwing away your time, young man,"
the inventor presently asserted, with an air of finality.
"I went all over the ground before completing my
invention, and my patents are broad enough to cover
everything."

But Westinghouse was not to be so easily fright-
ened off. The brake, as he noted on examination,

OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS AT THE DOOR 51

consisted of a windlass on the locomotive, which
could be revolved by pressing a grooved wheel against
the flange of the driving wheel, so as to wind up a
chain that ran underneath the entire train, just as
he had tentatively figured. That the two men should
have hit upon the same fundamental feature was
not strange, if we reflect that up to that hour no road
in the United States used a brake which was not
moved by a chain.

The chain of the apparatus was carried along its
course by running over a series of rollers connected
with the brake levers of every car in such a manner
that, as soon as the chain was tightened, the brakes
came instantly against the wheels. To Westinghouse
the windlass arrangement seemed clumsy, incapable
of accurate control, and subject to rapid deteriora-
tion under wear. For this, he believed a steam
cylinder might be substituted, placed beneath and
supplied with steam from the engine, its piston being
so connected as to draw the chain taut when desired.
Then arose a troublesome question. The Burlington
train which was undergoing demonstration consisted
of only four or five cars, whereas what he was aiming
to devise was a cab-controlled brake system for a
train made up of two or three times as many cars
and requiring a chain of correspondingly greater
length ; and where was the locomotive which could
carry a cylinder capable of taking up so much slack ?

To meet this difficulty, he conceived the idea of
supplying all the cars with separate cylinders, fed
from the engine by connections between the cars.
But here came in the factor of temperature ; for even

52 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

in warm weather the steam would be condensed be-
fore it had reached the hindmost car, while in winter
the condensed steam would freeze. Plainly, he
would have to seek some other agency than steam
for transmitting power from the cab.

"Opportunity," says the familiar maxim, "knocks
once at every man's door." The guise in which it
knocked at George Westinghouse's door is worthy
of a place among the romances of invention.

It was the noon hour in the office of the Westing-
house Works on the canal bank. The heads of the
concern had gone home for dinner, and the under-
lings who had brought their lunches with them were
gathered in groups, talking. Apart from the rest
sat George Westinghouse at a table, but looking out
of the window as he turned over and over in his mind
the most puzzling features of his brake problem. In
the midst of his meditations he became vaguely con-
scious of the presence of some one close to his elbow.
Whoever it was had apparently been standing there
some time. Looking up suddenly, his eyes encoun-
tered those of a young woman whom he now recalled
having noticed when she entered the office, with a
somewhat older companion, just after the noon
whistle blew. In her hand she carried a brown-
covered pamphlet that looked like a magazine. She
held this toward him at once.

" I am trying to raise a little money," she explained,
"by taking subscriptions for the Living Age. May
I show it to you?"

"No, I never read magazines," he answered,
waving her away.

OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS AT THE DOOR 53

"I thought, maybe — " she ventured timidly.

"Try some of those fellows over there," he in-
terrupted, motioning toward a table around which
four or five young men were gathered in conversation.

"I have tried them," pleaded the girl, "but they
all put me off in the same way. It is discouraging."
And in response to a beckoning touch from her com-
panion she started slowly toward the door. Some-
thing in her gentle appearance and manner moved
him to repent a little of his brusqueness, and he
reached out for the magazine she had proffered him.
Opening it at random, and passing over a few pages
of fiction and miscellaneous essays, his eye was caught
by an article entitled "In the Mont Cenis Tunnel."
It looked interesting.

"What are you trying to earn money for?" he
inquired.

"I am studying to be a teacher," she said, "and I
haven't the means to finish my course. I didn't
know what else to do, so I took an agency for the
magazine in the hope -

"How far will this go toward a subscription?"
he interrupted again. He had fished a bank note
from his pocket.

"Two dollars? That will pay for three months."

With a smile, he put down his signature and ad-
dress in her order-book. She hesitated, and held out
her hand.

"My magazine, please. It's my only sample
copy."

"Well, begin my subscription with that number.
There's something in it I want to read."

54 GEORGE WESTING HOUSE

She promised and withdrew. He never saw her
again, to his knowledge ; but their brief interview
was to have momentous consequences.

The magazine came in due time ; in the interval,
other matters had become pressing, and it lay un-
opened for a few days among his papers at home.
Then, one evening, having an hour to spare, he picked
it up and turned to the article which had first at-
tracted his attention. The author, a recent visitor
to the Mont Cenis tunnel, then in course of con-
struction, described in picturesque phrases the moun-
tain chain, the surrounding country, the approaches.
All very well, of course, but what Westinghouse
wanted came further on. The engineers in charge,
he read, had first considered following the usual prac-
tice of sinking vertical shafts or wells from the upper
surface at convenient distances apart, and cutting
through horizontally from one of these to another;
but all the shafts would have been of enormous depth,
and one of them, it was estimated, would have re-
quired nearly forty years to bore, so that plan had
to be abandoned, and the tunnel opened from its
opposite ends, the respective gangs working their
way toward each other. If they did this by hand,
fifty or sixty years must pass before they could meet
in the heart of the mountain. Steam machinery
might be used for boring; but steam requires fire,
and fire feeds on air, and when a gang of laborers
had penetrated three miles into the bowels of the
earth they would need all the air they could get for
their own lungs.

An English engineer had invented an apparatus

OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS AT THE DOOR 55

which by steam power would drive a drill like a
battering-ram against the face of the rock and make
holes for blasting. About the same time three Italian
engineers, who had been experimenting with com-
pressed air as a motor for driving a railway train up
a steep incline in the Apennines, conceived the idea
that the combination of the air motor with the
drilling machine would solve the tunnel-boring prob-
lem. The power would cost nothing, and, instead
of consuming air, would supply it to the workmen.
"The result," the article continued, "has been a
perforating machine, moved by common air com-
pressed to one sixth its natural bulk, and conse-
quently, when set free, exercising an expansive force
equal to six atmospheres."

With a triumphant ejaculation, Westinghouse
sprang from his chair, and threw the open magazine
down on the table. At last he had the answer to
his riddle ! If compressed air could be conveyed
through three thousand feet of pipe and yet retain
enough efficiency to drive a drill through the solid
stone heart of a mountain chain, it could certainly
be carried the length of a railroad train and still exert
the force required to set the brakes on the hindmost
car. The discovery was his last waking thought
that night, and the first thing to welcome his return-
ing consciousness the next morning ; and at once he
began making working drawings of the machinery
necessary for his purpose.

His brief encounter with the Chicago inventor had
taught our young friend prudence, and he scrupu-
lously kept his own counsel on the new turn he was

56 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

taking. He still went on his travels from time to
time to sell his earlier inventions ; but it had become
plain that for the present there was little more money
to be made from his reversible frog. This was not
because the frog was not as useful as ever, but, since
it was made of cast steel, it was so durable that the
roads rarely renewed their supply. His partners
became restless under the prospect of reduced
income, and, after proposing one and another im-
practicable scheme for cutting down expenses, they
summoned him to a confidential council one day,
announcing that they had a matter of grave im-
portance to call up.

It was a dismal afternoon when the three men
met in the little wooden house which they had
adopted as headquarters for their business. The
sky, shrouded in dark, threatening clouds, and a cold
rain, swept by heavy gusts of wind against the grimy
window panes and keeping up a constant fusillade
on the roof, united to make a theatrical setting for
the scene which followed. Westinghouse was
scarcely more than a boy. His partners were men
of mature years, recognized in the community as
persons of substance. After a few minutes' general
discussion of the way sales had declined and the
reasons therefor, one of the older men broached the
topic which had inspired their desire for a meeting.
'The business," said he, "has become too small
for three partners. As two of us have furnished all
the capital, while the third has put in merely his
time, it seems the logical thing to split right on that
line. In other words, you" — addressing Westing-

OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS AT THE DOOR 57

house — "should either buy us out, or else retire
and turn over the whole thing to us."

The young inventor's indignation was stirred by
this summary treatment.

"You know very well," he answered, "that I am
in no position to buy you out, so what's the use of
talking about that?"

"Well," the other reminded him, "we left open
an alternative."

"If I retire, what do you propose to pay me for
my patents?"

"Nothing. You have had the use of our money
from the start, in return for your services as salesman.
If necessary, we can hire an outside traveling man
to take your place, and lay him off when trade is dull."

By this time George was worked up to a fine fit
of temper.

"So you expect me to make you a present of my
patent rights?" he cried. "Well, you have missed
your guess, for I don't intend to. We'll break up
this business here and now, if you say so ; but from
the moment you and I part company, you make no
further use of my patents without paying me as you
would a stranger!"

"We'll see !" sneered the spokesman for the other
side.

"We will !" retorted George, hotly, as he buttoned
his overcoat about him and strode out into the storm.

The two older men had been prepared for a rather
trying interview with their youthful partner, but had
not counted on his ending it in this defiant style.
With a bride to support and no visible means with

58 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

which to do it, they had looked to see him surrender
at discretion. Probably they would have been still
more astonished had they heard him, at his father's
table that evening, announce his intention of going
to Pittsburgh.

"How long shall you be away ? " asked his mother.

"I don't know -- perhaps I'll stay there, if I like
it," said George.

This note of confidence delighted his young wife,
who declared that nothing would please her better
than to live in Pittsburgh, which she had heard was
a growing city and interesting. Then George ex-
plained that, a few weeks ago, he had learned of a
steel-making plant in Pittsburgh which, with its
superior facilities, could unquestionably make his
replacement apparatus much cheaper than it could
be made in mills nearer home, and he had been in
correspondence with the concern on the subject,
with the intention of laying the matter before his
partners as soon as there were definite data to report.
Now he was absolved from any obligation to them
and could go ahead on his sole responsibility.

He made his journey according to program, with
the purpose of arranging for the firm of Anderson
and Cook to manufacture the replacer at their own
cost and employ him as a traveling salesman. Never
having been in Pittsburgh before, he left his luggage
at the station on his arrival, and started out to find
his way to the office of the firm, which, his notebook
told him, was at the corner of Second Avenue and
Try Street. He was slowly walking away from the
station, hoping to discover some signs to guide him,

OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS AT THE DOOR 59

when he saw coming toward him a young man of
about his own age, tall, good-looking, and well dressed.
The stranger espied him at the same moment, and
the attraction seemed to be mutual, for they halted,
facing each other. Westinghouse explained where
he wished to go, and inquired the way. The young
man not only pointed it out, but volunteered to go
along for a short distance. In a few minutes they had
exchanged names, and were chatting like old friends.

The stranger, it appeared, was Ralph Baggaley,
a member of one of the most prominent families in
Pittsburgh, and the general manager of a local
foundry. He had received a part of his education
in Germany, and took a keen interest in technical
matters. Thus guided, Westinghouse presently
found himself at the office of Anderson and Cook,
and closeted with the senior partner, who soon ar-
ranged with him to start on the road at once and
solicit orders from the railroad companies.

Of this opportunity Westinghouse made the most.
He filed immediately in the Patent Office at Washing-
ton a caveat on his air brake ; and from that day
forward every railroad officer with whom he discussed
the replacer and frog was required later to listen to
an exposition of the brake. It was uphill work.
One would feign attention, perhaps, only to show by
his questions at the end of the monologue that he
had not grasped more than half that his caller had
been saying. Another would excuse himself for lack
of time before the talk had proceeded far. Among
those approached was "Commodore" Cornelius
Vanderbilt, who proved a good-enough listener, but

6o GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

then, in the direct manner for which he was famous,
dismissed the whole project as too imaginative for
serious consideration.

From time to time, Westinghouse would return
to Pittsburgh to report progress with his sales. On
one of these visits he encountered Baggaley again,
and, after an evening's exchange of experiences and
opinions, confided to him the air brake scheme.
Baggaley was polite, but by no means enthusiastic ;
it was plain that, in spite of his friendship for the in-
ventor, he regarded the invention as ingenious but
visionary. As Westinghouse warmed to his theme,
however, and grew not only eloquent, but convincing
in his reasoning, Baggaley became infected with his
spirit and began to conjure up in his own mind the
great possibilities of the device. As he was leaving
he said: "Westinghouse, we must lose no time in
putting this thing before some of the big men in the
railroad world."

The other's face fell.

"I could launch it without much difficulty," said
he, "if I had a little capital. I have seen several
railroad men already. They have no way of answer-
ing my arguments about the value of the invention
if it will work, but I haven't found one yet who was
willing to stand the expense of giving it a trial."

"Then a man who has money to risk would be of
more use to you just now than one who knows
railroading?"

"That's it."

"Perhaps your father would help you now, if you
put the case before him in that way."

OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS AT THE DOOR 61

Once more George approached his father in the
hope of inducing him to buy a fractional interest in
the patent ; but, in the correspondence which fol-
lowed, Mr. Westinghouse manifested more strongly
than ever his distaste for what he still regarded as a
pure speculation.

CHAPTER V
DOUBT CHANGED TO CERTAINTY

IN spite of his air of confidence, Westinghouse had
begun to wonder, after his series of rebuffs, whether
there might not be some technical feature of his in-
vention which made men of broader training and
experience than his suspicious of it. None of them
had suggested such a thing, though he had given
them plenty of openings ; possibly, he reflected,
they were too considerate of his feelings to tell him
the truth to his face. He resolved therefore to ob-
tain one verdict on which he could depend as un-
biased even by courtesy. Baggaley had announced
an intention to back the venture with a few thousand
dollars he was able to command, so that they could
be prepared to take instant advantage of any pro-
posal that might suddenly come to them for an ex-
periment ; but Westinghouse was reluctant to let
his friend assume such a risk till both felt sure that
they were on solid ground.

"We are wasting time with so much hesitation,"
declared Baggaley one day. "Let me put all the
drawings, directions, and claims into the hands of a
man I know, the most highly skilled mechanical
expert in the city of Pittsburgh, and have him pass

DOUBT CHANGED TO CERTAINTY 63

on them. It will cost something, for he gets good
fees for his opinions, but I think it will pay in the
end."

Westinghouse consenting, this was done. The
expert gave the subject his careful scrutiny, and in
the course of a fortnight handed back a written
opinion, which his young client read with feverish
eagerness. It was a sweeping condemnation of the
whole scheme as not only unsound but nonsensical.
Baggaley hurried with the paper to Westinghouse,
who went over it twice before handing it back. The
rising color in his face showed that he was angry,
but he gave no immediate vent to his feelings.

"How much did your expert charge you for that
death sentence?" he asked, after a little.

"One hundred dollars."

"Well, what are you going to do about it?"

"Watch me and see." And Baggaley, setting his
teeth hard, tore the manuscript into ribbons and
threw it into the grate. As it did not catch at once,
he struck a match and lighted the little pile, standing
over it till the last fragment of paper had been turned
into ashes, and the smoke from it had disappeared
up the chimney.

"That's a nice way to treat an expert's report,"
remarked Westinghouse with grim humor, as he
followed the other's motions with his eyes. "Ap-
parently you don't consider the fellow's opinion
worth so much now as you did before you got it?"

" It was worth the hundred dollars I paid for it —
every cent : it has taught me a lesson that I could
not have bought otherwise for ten times the money.

64 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

Hereafter I back my own judgment and let outsiders
go. George, I'll put up your common sense against
the special education of any expert in Christendom !
Now let's get to work, so as to be ready for the show
that somebody is sure to give us soon."

Both took fresh heart and plunged in with a will.
Although it was an expensive undertaking, Westing-
house, with Baggaley's support, prepared the ap-
paratus for an experiment as elaborately as if they
had a train of cars already at the door, waiting to be
equipped. But even the railroad managers to whom
the subject was presented in its new light were dis-
posed to fight shy of it. Their rolling-stock was
already supplied with brakes, they argued, and, while
it was always possible that something better than
they had might come along, they felt that, if they
had procured the best outfit at that time in general
use, they had done their duty to the public, and
spent as much of their stockholders' money as they
had a right to. Now and then one would concede
a half-promise that he would lay the question before
his directors at their next meeting ; but either he
failed to do so, or the directors declined to look into
it, and the weeks slipped by till the autumn of 1868
was at hand. In the meantime Westinghouse had
brought his wife from Schenectady, and they had
established themselves in Pittsburgh in a very modest
way.

Then came upon the scene Robert Pitcairn, local
superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad, who
promptly took a strong fancy to Westinghouse.
After lending a sympathetic ear to the usual ex-

DOUBT CHANGED TO CERTAINTY 65

planation of the brake and prophecies of its future
importance, "If I can get my people interested,"
said he, "I believe there is enough in the invention
to be worth a fair trial."

The flagging hopes of the young men sprang up
with a bound. A few days later, at Mr. Pitcairn's
instigation, Superintendent Williams came on from
Altoona accompanied by Andrew J. Cassatt, then
assistant superintendent of motive power for the
company and already recognized as one of its coming
notables. The two looked the apparatus over with
great particularity, and interrogated its sponsors
with an intelligence no one else except Mr. Pitcairn
had thus far displayed. This carried the matter a
stage further than anything that had preceded it ;
they were frank enough to say that they regarded
the invention as having more than ordinary merit,
but — and here followed the old, familiar reaction -
they were not prepared to recommend that their
company shoulder the entire expense of a practical
demonstration. Could not the young men arrange
to bear this, provided the company would furnish the
track and the train, the engineer and the crew, free
of charge?

No, the young men did not see their way clear to
do so. They were sorry, but, in constructing a com-
plete equipment for a locomotive and one car, they
had already gone to as heavy expense as they felt
justified in incurring. Could not the company meet
them on a little more advantageous ground? Mr.
Cassatt and his companion expressed their serious
doubts. If they could individually do just what

66 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

they wished to without consulting any one else, they
would be entirely willing to offer more liberal terms
for the sake of an experiment. The most they could
do was to promise that they would think everything
over conscientiously and make a perfectly well-
balanced report, but they would hold out no encour-
agement to look for a more favorable decision from
headquarters.

In the midst of the brief depression which followed
this rapid rise and fall of his anticipations, Westing-
house received one day an unheralded visit from
Superintendent W. W. Card of the Steubenville
division of the Panhandle Railroad.

"I understand," said he, "that you have invented
a remarkable brake ? "

Westinghouse, hardly able to trust his ears, as-
sured Mr. Card that this was the fact, and proceeded
to expatiate on the special excellences of his invention.
Instead of the polite repression he had learned to
expect from railroad officers when he opened his
floodgates of panegyric, he met with incitements to
go on from one point to another. And not only that,
but his extraordinary visitor, after listening atten-
tively to all he had to say, examined the sample
apparatus, part by part, with an appraising eye,
accompanying the inspection with comments which
showed that not a word of the explanation had been
lost upon him.

"If this will do all it appears capable of," was his
summing-up, as he surveyed the mechanism once
more in perspective, "you have opened a gold mine,
Mr. Westinghouse. The railroads have been waiting

DOUBT CHANGED TO CERTAINTY 67

a long time for a really good brake. What we have
now will answer only so long as we can find nothing
better in the market. When the right one comes
along, it will find the roads all ready for it.'*

A few days later he called again, bringing with him
the purchasing agent of his company, who was as
much impressed as he had been with the promise the
new device held forth ; but, in spite of Card's urgent
appeal that he order an experimental outfit and make
a practical test at the company's cost, the agent de-
clined, on the ground that he dared not take so
material a step without authority from the directors.
He would, he added, go before the board with
Mr. Card and put the case to them as strongly as
he could.

He was as good as his word. The directors, how-
ever, balked at the proposed outlay, and the net
result of the whole negotiation was a written order
from the president of the company, Thomas L. Jewett,
that the use of a train for a trial trip be placed at the
disposal of the inventor, conditioned on the latter's
contracting to equip it at his own expense and to
reimburse the company for any damage done to
locomotive or cars by the attachment of the appa-
ratus.

This was no better, really, than the Pitcairn-Cas-
satt proposal, but the young men were tired of al-
ternate hopes and disappointments, and grasped at
it rather than wait longer. They differed only on
one point. Westinghouse, with his fervid imagina-
tion in full action, was willing to run into almost any
debt for the money needed to get ready ; Baggaley,

68 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

who had had some experience in handling funds,
insisted that they must keep every expenditure down
to the lowest practicable figure. With what they
had already done in the way of building a specimen
brake apparatus, it took them a comparatively short
time to complete their preparations, and on the day
appointed they had on hand their air pump, their
main reservoir for the locomotive, cylinders for four
cars — the maximum length of the accommodation
train on which the test was to be made — and the
piping and hose connections required to connect the
locomotive reservoir with the car cylinders. On
the morning fixed for the trial trip, the rear car of the
train was reserved for a party of invited guests, in-
cluding those officers of the Panhandle company who
were not too timid to risk life and limb with an un-
tried device, and a few magnates of other companies
who seemed to have an open mind on the subject of
the new brake.

Daniel Tate, the engineer, was a bright young fel-
low, and it did not take Westinghouse a great while
to give him the final instructions about the brake so
that he felt perfectly confident of his ability to make
it work. Westinghouse, as he descended from the
cab, grasped Tate's hand and wrung it with warmth.

"All I ask of you, Dan," said he earnestly, "is to
give this thing a fair show. Good luck to you !"

Dan nodded a promise, and reached for his bell
rope. As he did so, something dropped from his
hand, the one Westinghouse had been shaking. It
was a little paper wad, which, when he had picked
it up and smoothed it out, proved to be a fifty-dollar

DOUBT CHANGED TO CERTAINTY 69

note. Acting on quick impulse to restore what he
feared was lost money, he leaned out of the cab and
looked down the train ; Westinghouse was just
boarding the hindmost car. Their eyes met, and
Tate held up the bill. Westinghouse smiled, but
motioned him to put it into his pocket. Tate did
so, well pleased with the generosity of the gift, but
little suspecting that it contained the last dollar the
young man had in purse or in prospect.

Within a short distance of the Panhandle station
was a tunnel about one sixth of a mile long, piercing
Grant Hill and emerging at Fourth Avenue, where
accommodation trains were accustomed to halt to
pick up passengers. As this trial train was not to
stop there, Tate rapidly increased its speed till it
was moving at the rate of about thirty miles an hour.
Abundant precaution was supposed to have been
taken to prevent pedestrians or vehicles from getting
upon the track at the two surface crossings between
there and the bridge spanning the Monongahela River,
beyond which the Panhandle ran into the open coun-
try. But, of course, " a fool there was" in the person
of a drayman on Second Avenue who disregarded
all warnings and pushed ahead till, as his horses
stepped into the space between the rails, he saw
bearing down upon him, only two blocks away, the
big, black front of a locomotive. It was too late to
pull back, and in a frenzy of terror he laid the lash
with all his might over the animals' flanks. The
horses were as badly demoralized as he, and their
first response was to plunge forward with a motion
which loosened the crosswise plank he was using for

70 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

a seat, and threw him to the ground with his body
across one of the rails.

The whole thing had happened in barely an instant
of time, and a tragedy was averted only by the quick
wit of the engineer. Tate, who had just been turn-
ing over in his mind the most effective way of bring-
ing the train to a standstill at the first station where
it was to halt, reached instinctively for the brake
valve and gave it a mighty twist. The air rushed
out of the compressor through the pipes into the
cylinders beneath the cars, and the pistons brought
the brake shoes with force against the wheels. There
was a grating sound and a sudden jar as the train
came to a stop with the cowcatcher of the locomotive
only four feet on the safe side of the unhappy driver.

In the flash of an eye Tate had swung himself out
of the cab and was helping the man to his feet. Then,
leaving his fireman in charge of the engine, he ran
back to see how the stop had affected the train gen-
erally. He was met by Westinghouse and a number
of the invited guests, most of whom were rubbing
their heads or their shins, or pressing their battered
hats into shape as they limped along. Every one
was eager to know what the matter was, and the
pleasure of all at learning that the spasmodic appli-
cation of the brakes had saved a human life, was a
salve to the discomfort they had suffered from being
hurled without warning out of their seats and strewn
over the floor of their car, which, as the tail of the
train, had received the worst shock. When they
had first alighted they had been almost in fighting
mood ; but as they climbed back the general verdict

DOUBT CHANGED TO CERTAINTY 71

was that the air brake was capable of doing what its
inventor claimed for it. A question was raised
whether, having witnessed such a demonstration,
they should reverse the train and return to Pitts-
burgh ; but the proposal was unanimously voted
down, and the whole party proceeded to Steuben-
ville as originally planned. Tate treated them, on
the way, to several tests which were as satisfying,
even if not quite so drastic, as the initial one. He
was as pleased with the apparatus as a child with a
new toy, and took the utmost pride in showing how
easily, and with what varied effects, it could be
handled.

When the return trip was ended, Westinghouse,
full of elation over his triumph, shook hands with his
guests and started for home to tell his wife the news.
But before he got many steps away from the station
he paused and reentered it, hastening to the telegraph
office, where he filed the following despatch to his
father in Schenectady :

" My air brake had practical trial today on passen-
ger train on Panhandle Railroad and proved a great
success. GEORGE. "

He was still sanguine enough to hope that, in the
face of such a fulfillment of prophecy, the old gentle-
man would experience a change of heart and volunteer
an offer to finance the next stage of the business.
But nothing of the sort was forthcoming. Mr. West-
inghouse was evidently in no haste to make a princely
fortune. His only response to the telegram was a
short and characteristic letter expressing in prudent

72 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

phraseology his pleasure at reading so favorable a
report, and remarking that, the brake having al-
ready "proved a great success," of course there would
be no further difficulty in procuring all the money
needed for manufacturing and marketing it.

The first air brake patent was issued to Westing-
house on the thirteenth of April, 1869. But mean-
while he had not been idle. Feeling that he now
could afford to resign his place as salesman for
Anderson and Cook and devote his entire time to
the promotion of his new enterprise, he laid certain
plans before Baggaley, who gladly joined forces with
him. The firm with which Baggaley had been con-
nected was dissolved, and its foundry was converted
temporarily into a plant for the manufacture of air
brakes. Some of the leading officers of the Penn-
sylvania Railroad Company, having recovered from
their first apathy and being anxious to make up for
lost time, fitted out an exhibition train to run to
Altoona, primarily to show the working of the new
brake to the directors of their corporation, but in-
cidentally to perform an important service in pub-
licity. A number of newspaper writers were taken
along, and in a few days the press everywhere was
furnished with the story of the invention.

In Philadelphia, Westinghouse used the same train
for demonstration purposes, with many prominent
railroad men from various parts of the country as
witnesses; among the rest was the general super-
intendent of the Chicago and Northwestern system,
who was so impressed with what he saw that he in-
vited the inventor to bring the train to Chicago and

DOUBT CHANGED TO CERTAINTY 73

exhibit it. This was done, with the effect of intro-
ducing the brake to the notice of a number of Western
railroad managers who had not yet seen it work.
From Chicago Westinghouse was invited to St. Louis,
where the same thing was repeated. From that
point the brake made its own way without the ex-
penditure of any extraordinary effort, and orders
began to come in from quarters where the inventor
had but recently seen only the cold shoulder turned
toward his advances.

In July, 1869, the Westinghouse Air Brake Com-
pany was organized under a Pennsylvania charter
with a capitalization of five hundred thousand dollars.
In these days when we talk of all considerable enter-
prises in terms of millions, this seems like a modest
start, but measured by the standards of half a cen-
tury ago it was regarded as a very heavy responsi-
bility for a comparative youth of unknown antece-
dents to shoulder. The board of directors was wisely
chosen from among the group of men who were
familiar with the air brake mechanism and had wit-
nessed the experimental tests of its efficiency, and
whose names, for the most part, stood for something
in the railroad world. These were Robert Pitcairn,
W. W. Card, Andrew J. Cassatt, Edward H. Williams,
G. D. Whitcomb, Ralph Baggaley, and, of course,
Westinghouse, who became first president of the
corporation. John Caldwell was elected treasurer.

Everything seemed to be moving along as satis-
factorily as could be hoped, when the directors, at
one of their meetings, were treated to a shock. A
patent expert whom they had engaged to go through

74 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

all the railway brake literature of this and other coun-
tries, and ascertain for them just what relation the
Westinghouse invention bore to previous essays in
the same field, brought in a report that, about thirty
years before, essentially the same device had been
patented in England, but proved so unpractical that
the patent expired before any use had been made of
it. The consternation which reigned for a little
while was dispelled when Westinghouse, by an analy-
sis of the terms of the British patent, showed that
the mechanism it covered was unworkable in emer-
gencies because, before the brake could be applied,
the locomotive driver was required to turn steam
into a pump for compressing the air, whereas his own
apparatus had the air already stored in a compressor
on the locomotive.

The discomforting suggestion conveyed in the
report, however, promptly bore good fruit ; for the
always lively imagination of young Westinghouse
was spurred by it to the question: ''If the English
railways are still unequipped with a first-rate air
brake, why not sell them mine?" As usual with
him, action was quick to follow thought. The Pitts-
burgh works had got well under way during the
winter of 1869 and 1870, and by the autumn of the
latter year he was ready for his invasion of the old
world. Although he took his wife with him, it cost
him something of a wrench to cut loose from the scene
of his first large activities, for he had recently bought
a house and lot at Homewood, on the eastern edge
of the city, christened the little estate " Solitude ",
and Gettled down to his first real experience as lord

DOUBT CHANGED TO CERTAINTY 75

of a domestic establishment. But if he were made a
trifle homesick by the prospect of leaving everything
on which he had fixed his heart's desire on this side
of the water, he felt more so when he reached the
other side and found himself in the chilliest atmos-
phere he had ever encountered.

CHAPTER VI,
"NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE SUCCESS "

AMERICANS who know England and the English
only on the hospitable side they present to our coun-
try and its people today will have some difficulty in
appreciating the situation existing when George
Westinghouse made his first entry into London.
Up to that time there had not been established any
of the reciprocity of cordial sentiment which has
characterized the intercourse of the two nations dur-
ing the last twenty years. On our part, we were
still cherishing the hostile traditions of 1776 and 1812,
and resentful memories of the privateering episodes
of the early '6o's ; on theirs, there was a sense of
rancor at our encouragement, for political purposes,
of Irish insurgency and almost everything else that
was notoriously anti-English. Moreover, in those
days, whatever was associated with American rail-
roading was under more or less suspicion in England,
owing to several well-advertised misfortunes suffered
by English investors in wildcat projects here. The
era of corporate inflation opened by our Civil War,
the launching of the first crude schemes for trans-
continental rail routes, the abuse of the Erie system
as a football of professional stock gamblers, and the
struggle continually going on between rival specu-

"NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE SUCCESS" 77

lative rings for the control of a few valuable properties
for questionable purposes had combined to give the
more conservative element in English business circles
a notion of American affairs generally as disagreeable
as it was unjust.

In view of these conditions, it appeared to West-
inghouse a wise precaution to ascertain the feeling
of the scientific periodicals toward such an invention
as his before attempting to place it in the hands of
any of the carrying companies. He made overtures
in one or two quarters where, as soon as he announced
his nationality, he met with a repulse. The last
journal he approached was Engineering, a weekly
which he had seen now and then at home, where its
original editor, Zerah Colburn, was well known.
Two editors had since succeeded Mr. Colburn —
Messrs. W. H. Maw and J. Dredge. It so happened
that when he made his first call Mr. Maw was out
of the office, and he was received by Mr. Dredge,
who seemed, in spite of the customary English re-
serve, to take an instant liking to him. In a few
minutes Westinghouse was deep in his exposition of
his air brake. Dredge listened curiously, but gave
him no immediate sign of encouragement. At the
close of their talk, Westinghouse left with the editor
a copy of his patent, with some additional drawings
and a popular description prepared by himself.
Mr. Dredge consented to examine the documents
carefully as soon as he could command the necessary
time, and, if he found them satisfactory, to publish
his impressions.

"But I warn you, Mr. Westinghouse/' he said

78 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

good-naturedly, as he fastened the folio and laid it
among his more important papers, "you have put
your head into the lion's mouth, and will have no
one but yourself to blame if it is bitten off."

"I'll take my chances," laughed Westinghouse.
"Of course, it makes a world of difference if you know
the habits of your lion."

The whimsical challenge, though taken up so
blithely on the spot, recurred to the inventor's mind
several times between this interview and the appear-
ance of the next issue of Engineering, through which
he looked in vain for any comment on his brake.
Every time he thought of it, it had taken on a little
more serious significance, till he had begun to wonder
whether he might not, after all, have made a mistake
in coming to a periodical of so high standing before
making a practical test of his brake somewhere in
Great Britain. The notion was strengthened when,
after a considerable interval, he called upon Mr.
Dredge again, to inquire what prospect there was of
an article at an early date. The editor handed him
a sheet of proof to read, with the remark: "I have
been favorably impressed with your brake, from the
literature about it which you left me. I am keeping
that for future use if an occasion offers itself. Just
now, however, the thing for you to do is to place your
brake on one of our railways and give a public ex-
hibition of its working. The readers of Engineering
will take far more interest in a statement of what we
have seen with our own eyes than in any suggestion
we might print, founded on nothing more substantial
than your patent and claims."

"NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE SUCCESS" 79

"My brake/' argued Westinghouse, "is already
in constant use on several American roads."

"Doubtless," assented Dredge; "and yet you
will appreciate the fact that our people are a bit skep-
tical about the operations of American railways un-
less they have evidence of a very convincing char-
acter."

"What do you wish? Shall I give you a list of
the roads in the United States which use my brake,
and let you write to the managers and learn for your-
self whether my pretensions are justified?"

"That's not a bad idea. Incidentally, however,
I have put into your hands the rough draft of some-
thing I shall say in Engineering apropos of the gen-
eral subject of air brakes. If your invention proves
to be all that you say it is, this demand of mine will
make a very good form of introduction for what I
may wish to write later. Mind you, I am not saying
that all you claim may not be absolutely well founded.
I merely intend to take reasonable means of assuring
myself."

Westinghouse withdrew, bearing with him Dredge's
proof sheet, which he read with interest at the first
opportunity. It was a broad plea for a better brake
than any then in use on British railways, and it gave
a catalogue of the qualities which the editor con-
sidered essential to a satisfactory continuous braking
system for trains, about as follows :

First, the brakes must be applicable with equal
facility by either the locomotive-driver or the guards
who might be in various parts of a train ;

Second, the act of applying the brakes must call

8o GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

for only a slight exertion on the part of the person
performing it ;

Third, the application must be capable of either
instantaneous or gradual performance, according to
the peculiar character of the exigency ;

Fourth, if a part of the train breaks loose from the
rest, the brakes must come automatically into play ;

Fifth, the system must permit carriages, whether
fitted with the brakes or not, to be attached to, or
detached from, the train ;

Sixth, when a train is divided, the brakes on every
division must be capable of working independently ;

Seventh, the failure of the brake apparatus on one
or more carriages must not interfere with the action
of the brakes on the rest of the train ;

Eighth, the brake mechanism must be of very
simple character, easy to maintain, and not liable to
derangement by rough use, or disuse and neglect.

At a first reading, these conditions struck Westing-
house as rather severe, but he was cheerfulness itself
when next he called upon Dredge and offered to
return the borrowed proof.

"Oh, keep it, if it interests you," said the editor,
with a wave of the hand. "Are you prepared now
to tell me that your brake meets all my require-
ments?"

"By no means," answered Westinghouse. "But
it is still in its infancy, and I am quite certain that
before I get through with it you will have no fault
to find with its operation."

"You are still working on it?"

"I don't suppose I shall ever stop."

"By Jove!" Dredge brought his flat palm down
upon a pile of papers before him. "You speak like

"NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE SUCCESS" 81

a man of spirit. I like that. Although you are an
inventor, you're not blinded by your own genius."

"No, I can still see well enough to discover the
faults in your catalogue of requisites."

"For example — ?" the editor was all attention.

"For a first criticism, you are indiscriminate. You
apparently recognize no distinction between the
needs of a train making long runs and one that has
a short route and stops every few minutes — what
we call in America an ' accommodation.' Don't you
see that the chances are all against having to divide a
train, attach and detach cars, and so forth where the
stations are only eight or ten miles apart at most ? "

"That is a fair criticism as far as it goes." Dredge
made a few notes in pencil on a memorandum sheet.
"What next?"

"Why, perhaps I should take an exception also
to your fourth demand, when applied to local trains.
With fast running, there is always the liability that
a coupling may break under the strain, and your
train be cut in two ; whereas, at any speed ever
reached between stations almost within gunshot of
each other, the possibility of such an accident is
reduced to a minimum."

"Nevertheless, you admit that it exists?"

"Of course. But don't you see that the forward
fragment of your train would reach the next station
so soon that there would really be no danger to life
or property before the missing part could be picked
up and reattached?"

" There it is! You Americans are always calcu-
lating probabilities — taking chances."

82 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

"And you Britishers go to the other extreme,
which is just as bad, or worse. I wonder you ever
dare lay out a program for tomorrow ; who knows
that it will come?"

Dredge, so far from being nettled by the retort,
chuckled audibly.

"Very well, Young America, I've made a note of
your criticisms and will give them due consideration.
I still stand by my first proposition, however, that
Engineering had better wait until you have placed
your brake on an experimental train in this country,
as you did at the start in the United States. Then,
whatever we print will have weight/'

There being nothing left to discuss, Westinghouse
took his leave, and the next morning entered upon a
systematic campaign among the railway companies.
He had brought with him, from men of standing in
the transportation business in America, letters of
introduction to some of their English brethren ; but
in spite of such an armament he found it no easy
matter to pierce the wall of form and ceremony with
which these magnates had surrounded themselves.
As illustrative of the common attitude, he used to
enjoy, later in life, telling the story of his visit to the
managing director of one great railway, whom he
asked, by way of opening conversation, whether he
had read a little pamphlet that had been mailed him
a few days before, descriptive of the new brake.

"No," was the frigid response. "I receive many
pamphlets in my mail, but I rarely read them."

"Neither do I," said Westinghouse; "most of
them would not pay me for my time. But as this

"NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE SUCCESS" 83

one contains information about a new thing in your
special field — "

"So many new things/' interrupted the manager,
"are worthless, that as a rule they have ceased to
interest me."

"Well, here is one which will, I am sure." West-
inghouse drew a duplicate from his pocket. "With
your permission, I will give you a brief abstract of
its contents." And he plunged, as he had so often
while his invention was still untried, into a recitation
of its points of especial merit, concluding his speech
with an account of the actual tests it had met so
creditably on American railroads. At the close of
his exposition he asked permission to equip a loco-
motive, tender and car on this gentleman's road, and
prove beyond question what the apparatus could do.

"Let you use our property for such a purpose?"
ejaculated the astounded manager. "I really could
not think of it for a moment ! "

"But I am ready to attach my apparatus at my
own expense," pleaded the visitor.

"Oh, quite so, quite so; I take that for granted.
It makes no difference, however. We have not a
locomotive, a tender or a carriage to spare for your
experiments."

'Then could I not hire the necessary vehicles,
equip them with my brake, and give an exhibition
in the presence of any number of gentlemen you care
to invite?"

"No, no. You positively must take my refusal
as final. In the plainest terms, we do not wish to
rent any of our rolling stock for you to use in your

84 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

demonstration. " By this time the railroad man's
manner was very impatient, and his face was grow-
ing purple. In spite of so threatening a symptom
the inventor persisted.

" Possibly you will consent, then, to sell me a train ?
All I really need is a locomotive, a tender and four
passenger coaches. What is your price for such an
outfit over here?"

If this irrepressible young Yankee had struck him
with a bludgeon, the Englishman could hardly have
appeared more dazed. It took him a full minute to
realize what he had heard, and to make sure that his
visitor was in earnest, before he answered :

"You will have to give me a little time to consider
that question. It is too extraordinary to be settled
in an instant. I can probably give you an answer
in about a week. But I assume you understand
that, even if we consent to sell you a train, such a
concession would not include permission to run over
our tracks with your machinery. We must stop
short of that, you know."

Rising with a bow which announced as distinctly
as words that the interview was at an end, the man
of fifty dismissed the youth of twenty- five quite
without a thought that the next time they met for a
negotiation the man would be making the bid and
the youth taking time to consider it.

But this is what happened, though it was a good
while in coming. In March, 1872, the London and
North-Western Railway Company gave Westing-
house permission to exhibit his brake on its line be-
tween Stafford and Crewe, and, about the same time,

"NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE SUCCESS" 85

he was allowed to equip a train of twelve passenger
coaches and two freight cars for a series of tests on
the Caledonian Railway between Glasgow and
Wemyss Bay. In each instance the demonstration
was successful. A little later several trials were made
on the South-Eastern Railway with a train consisting
of a locomotive, tender, and six cars, and the witnesses
were free with their praise of the way the apparatus
acted. Still, neither these corporations, nor any
others whose representatives were present at the
tests, were willing to prove their satisfaction at once
by formally adopting the Westinghouse brake as
their standard. The first real step forward was taken
by the Metropolitan District Railway in London in
January, 1873. Eighteen months afterward the
British Board of Trade conducted a series of brake
trials in which chain, hydraulic, and vacuum brakes
competed with the air brake. In 1875 another series
of tests was made under the auspices of the British
Railways Accident Commission. In all these the
Westinghouse proved itself the most efficient con-
tinuous brake on the market. Everybody except
the vacuum brake manufacturers seemed willing to
concede its superiority, but many of the railroad
managers complained that it was too expensive.
This brought Engineering again to the fore with
evidence gathered from a host of American experts
that the original cost of equipping their lines with
Westinghouse brakes was more than made up by
the saving on repairs.

At first Westinghouse had fancied that the reluc-
tance manifested in England to accepting his brake

86 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

outright might be due to the local railways having
already some sufficiently good apparatus of which he
had not learned. To see for himself the actual con-
ditions, he engaged a man familiar with local railway
operations to travel with him throughout Great
Britain. Speaking afterward of these trips he said :
"I found that there were no continuous brakes in
use except on a few trains on the London and North-
Western and the North London railways. These
were fitted with Clark's chain brakes, operated by a
guard from the brake van, and not connected or at-
tached to the locomotive. I failed to find a single
continuous brake in which power was communicated
throughout the train through lines of pipe, except
what was known as Barker's hydraulic system, which
was then in process of trial. There never had been
any compressed air brakes in successful operation in
England. The London, Chatham, and Dover Rail-
way had tried one on a train running between the
Crystal Palace and Victoria station, but had aban-
doned it as unsatisfactory ; and the locomotive
superintendent of the Great Northern Railway had
had some sort of experience with one which convinced
him that the underlying principle was impracticable,
so that for a long time I could not obtain even a
hearing in that quarter. With these exceptions I
could find no evidence that air brakes of any kind
had ever even been tried."

Not all the period covered by this outline was
passed continuously in England. Between 1871
and 1 88 1 Westinghouse crossed the ocean repeatedly,
keeping thus in close touch with his American com-

"NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE SUCCESS" 87

pany. He also made several fruitful visits to the
Continental capitals, where the air brake met with a
much warmer reception than among English railway
managers. In Belgium, for example, a royal com-
mission of engineers, after a thorough comparison
of his brake with all others which had been brought
to their attention, adopted it as the standard equip-
ment for the state railways ; and from other sources
there gradually came limited orders which, though
obviously only experimental, gave him a feeling that
his invention was making its way in the old world in
spite of its apparently unpromising start. To fa-
cilitate the handling of his European business, he
organized a British corporation and established a
large plant for the manufacture of the brake, with
executive offices in London. His most formidable
competitor was a vacuum brake company ; and it
is significant of the conservatism bred into the flesh
and bone of even the most intelligent class of English-
men that, though the rest of the world has for the
most part adopted the air brake as by far the most
satisfactory device yet invented, many of the British
railroads are still committed to the vacuum brake
and resist all movements for a change.

Meanwhile, instead of resenting criticisms which
often were hard to bear, Westinghouse had turned
them to profit by studying out the improvements
they called for in one and another feature, culminat-
ing in the invention of the now familiar automatic
brake, which he patented in 1872, and which fulfilled
in every respect the ideal requirements proposed
by Mr. Dredge. The original non-automatic or

88 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

" straight-air" brake had consisted of a very simple
steam-actuated air pump placed on the side of the
locomotive, and a reservoir in which the compressed
air could be stored. A pipe line from the reservoir
was carried through the length of the train, connec-
tions between vehicles being made by means of hose
and couplings. Every vehicle was provided with a
simple cast-iron cylinder, the piston rod of which
was connected with the brake rigging in such a way
that when the air was admitted to the cylinder the
piston was forced out, and the brakes were thereby
applied. In the engineer's cab there was placed in
the pipe line a three-way cock, by means of which
compressed air could be admitted to the pipe line
and thus to the cylinder on every car; or the air
already in the cylinders and pipe line could be dis-
charged to the atmosphere, releasing the brakes.

Excellent as this apparatus was by comparison
with any predecessor in the same line, it lacked
certain desirable features and was liable to prove
inoperative in some emergency when it would be
most needed, from the bursting of the hose under
pressure, the parting of the train or other rupture of
the system. In order to obviate such perilous pos-
sibilities, Westinghouse brought out what is now
known as the automatic brake. Its essential differ-
ence from the " straight-air" brake consisted in the
installation of supplementary or auxiliary reservoirs
for the storage of compressed air on the cars in addi-
tion to the main reservoir on the locomotive ; thus
every vehicle carried its own source of power, and
the employment of an ingenious valve mechanism

11 NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE SUCCESS" 89

to cause the application of the brake by the reduction
of air pressure in the train-pipe — no matter whether
the reduction were made intentionally or by accident
- so that a ruptured hose or a serious air leakage
from whatever source would stop the train. This
device was called a " triple valve", because of its
threefold function of applying a brake, releasing it,
and charging its auxiliary reservoir. As a product
of pure invention it is probable that the automatic
brake system represented in the highest degree West-
inghouse's capacity as an inventor.

It was not merely in large matters that Westing-
house found his progress impeded by insular preju-
dice during his early British campaign, but in lesser
details as well. In a speech he made in London in
1903 before a distinguished body of scientific men,
he was able to take a laughing glance backward at
these annoyances, time having vindicated his fore-
sight.

"I came here first," said he, "about thirty years
ago, and for ten years I was here half my time. At
that time it was very difficult to get anything done
in England, as I could get no one to believe in any-
thing I proposed. I wanted in those early days to
try an iron brake shoe, because, on account of the
rapid wear, we could not keep the wooden shoes
adjusted. I had to beg and plead to be permitted
to put a set of metal brake shoes on one tender of
the Caledonian Railway. Finally I succeeded. Of
course, you all know that nowadays all the railway
brake shoes or blocks are made of cast iron or other
metal and are used upon all the wheels of the train."

90 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

By the fall of 1881 the Westinghouse automatic
air brake was in use on over 3164 locomotives and
17,290 cars in various foreign countries, ranging from
over 1087 locomotives and 7719 cars in Great Britain,
and 1416 locomotives and 7193 cars in France, down
to one locomotive and six cars in Sweden. In the
United States, 3435 locomotives and 12,790 cars
were equipped with it. Of the fourteen British rail-
ways employing it, the largest patrons were the
North-Eastern, the London, Brighton, and South
Coast, the Great Eastern, the North British, the
Caledonian, and the Glasgow and South- Western
systems. The statistics, here given, moreover, do
not include the straight-air brakes, of which a very
large number were still in use on railways which had
bought them before the automatic brake came into
general notice. As a fitting conclusion to the cata-
logue of ten years' achievements, Europe was dotted
with manufacturing establishments where hundreds
of mechanics were busy producing Westinghouse
brake apparatus, with a combined capacity for
equipping an average of three hundred locomotives
and twelve hundred cars every month. And all
this had been evolved from the brain and hand of
an American just turned thirty-five, who, obliged
to hew his own way without the aid of power-
ful allies, had by sheer energy and pluck already
raised himself from obscurity to eminence and a
steadily improving bank account.

CHAPTER VII
THE BATTLE OF THE BRAKES

UP to 1880 the use of power brakes was confined
wholly to passenger service ; but some railroads
in the mountainous regions of the West had grades
so steep as to render the conduct of their freight
traffic very hazardous, and this led to their adopt-
ing presently a straight-air brake, and later an auto-
matic brake specially designed for their use. At
that time the freight trains on lines west of the Mis-
souri River were comparatively short, and there
was little interchange of cars between them, so that
every road used the equipment best suited to its
needs, practically without reference to the equipment
of its neighbors. In the East, however, the length
of the trains was continually on the increase, and
the interchange of cars was so general that the intro-
duction of power brakes for freight traffic had not
yet been attempted. Meanwhile, as trains grew
longer and loads heavier, accidents to human life,
goods in transit, and rolling stock occurred with
more and more frequency, emphasizing the need of
some kind of automatic coupling to replace the old
link and pin, the substitution of power brakes for
hand brakes, and the establishment of a uniform

92 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

standard of mechanisms in both instances, so that
a car of any one line could be inserted in a train of
any other and be operated under the same control.
An efficient coupler was finally developed and
adopted, but the determination of a standard power
brake presented greater difficulties. There were
several inventions in the field, and the Master Car
Builders' Association decided to clear the situation
by designating a committee to conduct a series of
competitive tests between them at Burlington,
Iowa. The first meet was fixed for the spring of
1886, and, although every brake manufacturer in
the country was invited to take part with a train
of fifty cars fitted with his own apparatus, this
trial was to all intents an elimination contest, since
only the automatic air and the vacuum brakes made
a showing on which any reasonable hope could be
based. The committee reported that the opera-
tion of the automatic air brake met the ordinary
requirements of service work, but that its action
was unsatisfactory in emergencies because of the
slow passage of the power from the front to the
rear of a long train. With the sudden stoppage
from low speeds of such a train, by the application
of the brakes with full force, the cars at the front
end would come to an almost instant standstill,
those further back banging successively into them
till the influence exerted from the locomotive had
reached the last car. Animals in the cattle cars
were liable to be wounded or killed by being hurled
into heaps, the forward end of a heavy car might
smash the rear end of a light one and ruin every-

THE BATTLE OF THE BRAKES 93

thing fragile carried therein, and train hands
were in danger of being thrown into the spaces
between cars and crushed to death or permanently
crippled.

Another trial was accordingly set for the spring
of the following year, at the same place. Between
the two trials Westinghouse bent his entire thought
upon studying out a means of increasing the emer-
gency speed of action of his brake in the parts of the
train furthest from the locomotive, and this he
accomplished.

Six competitors took part in the fresh test. One
brake was operated by electricity alone ; a second
by compressed air alone ; a third by electricity
and a vacuum ; while Westinghouse and one other
manufacturer contributed brakes combining com-
pressed air and electricity. The electric appliances
used by Westinghouse were very simple, and not
required on every car ; two or three of them, in-
serted between the hose couplings in various parts
of a long train, sufficed to produce the desired results.
The arrangement was such that when the brakes
were set electrically the pneumatic application was
made also, and in the event of an electrical failure
the train would still be stopped pneumatically ;
whereas the other electrically-operated brakes had
complicated and delicate mechanisms on every car,
and if the electric operation failed the engineer lost
control of the train. The improvements Westing-
house had recently made in the triple valve conveyed
the braking force from the locomotive to the last
car on a fifty-car freight train more than twice as

94 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

quickly as this had ever been done before ; yet the
lapse of time between the first and final applications
was still distinctly measurable, and the enhanced
efficiency of the individual brakes increased rather
than lessened the shock evil.

In the trials of 1887 an instrument called a slide-
ometer was used to determine the relative violence
of the shocks produced by sudden stopping under
various conditions. It consisted of a wooden trough,
fourteen feet long by six inches wide, made of clear
white pine smoothly planed. This was screwed
fast to the center of the rear car, and in it would
slide, in either direction, a wrought iron disc weigh-
ing a trifle more than sixteen pounds. Crude as
the device appeared, it answered its purpose well.
Shocks in the ordinary handling of trains with slack
couplings, over sags or hogbacks, or working in
yards, would move the disc from two to eight inches ;
twelve inches indicated a shock sufficient to injure
live stock and equipment ; while repeated blows
registering from twelve to twenty inches would
start the loads at the rear of the train through the
ends of the cars. It was soon evident that not all
the improvement yet made in the automatic air
brake had carried it past the danger point, as the
sudden stoppage of a train moving at a speed of
twenty miles an hour, under some conditions, caused
the disc to slide more than one hundred and twenty
inches ; only when electricity was employed to oper-
ate the air valves were the results satisfactory.
The committee's report, therefore, was generally
favorable to a brake operated by air, having valves

THE BATTLE OF THE BRAKES 95

actuated by electricity — practically a verdict against
brakes operated by air alone.

Among the technically trained observers who
attended these trials, probably the only one who
did not read in this turn of affairs an end to the
dominance of Westinghouse in his special field was
Westinghouse himself. To a friend who attempted
to say something comforting, he turned a face which,
though serious, was entirely cheerful.

"What are you going to do now?" asked the
friend.

"What I have left undone hitherto," he answered
— "perfect my air brake."

To this task he addressed his attention with the
same industry that had characterized his previous
undertakings. He felt that the electric factor must
be eliminated if possible, because of the perils of
depending upon an agency so liable to accident from
uncontrollable conditions. As the improved triple
valve had proved that it was based on a correct
principle, he devoted his first thought to various
accessories, of which the details of construction in
any wise influenced the flow of air in the apparatus.
The ports of the triple valve were also enlarged, and
this, with succeeding modifications of kindred na-
ture, enabled him, within three months after the
apparent collapse of his supremacy, to produce the
device now known as the quick-acting brake, which
completely reversed the verdict just reached. Occa-
sional hints would filter through the engineering
press that there would soon be some important
news to record, but not the most imaginative writer

96 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

would have ventured a guess at what actually hap-
pened ; for, though the final product was still the
Westinghouse brake already known all over the
world, it had been reorganized by such changes as
reduced the time of the serial action of the brakes
on a fifty-car freight train to a little more than two
seconds, and enabled the locomotive driver to stop
the train, while speeding at forty miles an hour
down a steep grade, in less than half its own length,
not only without a sensible shock, but with not
even the slightest disturbance of the slideometer !

An illuminating incident occurred during this
last test at Burlington. The performance of elec-
trically-operated brakes had been so brilliant that
the local atmosphere was highly charged with elec-
tric sentiment as related to the brake question. It
happened that, in the midst of the tests, one of
the business cars of the Burlington road, with sev-
eral officers of the company aboard, anchored for
a night on the trial field. These gentlemen were,
of course, informed of the latest developments,
and when Westinghouse and some of his associates
made a social call on them, the conversation naturally
turned on the subject of greatest interest. Plainly
the visitors believed that the days of the automatic
air brake were numbered, and they expressed this
idea in sympathetic terms, doubtless with a view
of letting Westinghouse down gently. He, how-
ever, combated the notion that electricity, with
its uncertainty of action, could safely be depended
upon in a matter so vital as the braking of a train ;
the results obtained in the tests, he admitted, were

THE BATTLE OF THE BRAKES 97

interesting as experiments, but he regarded the
devices used as impracticable in the then existing
state of the braking and electrical arts. He was
deep in this phase of the discussion when one of
his hosts, thinking to order refreshments, pushed
an electric button for the steward. There was no
response, the bell refusing to ring. Instantly West-
inghouse forced home his argument, declaring that
the failure of the bell illustrated the untrustwor-
thiness of electricity as a dependence in emergencies ;
if it could not be relied on to summon a waiter, how
could we afford to confide to it the braking of a
heavy train ! l

The confidence Westinghouse had expressed to
his friend at the close of the public trials had not
been mere vaunting ; in the very hour when the
shadows of defeat seemed closing in about him he
had seen the point of weakness in his mechanism
as it stood, and forecast a possible remedy. But
in spite of all his knowledge and his faith, it was a

1 As a matter of record it should be said that the brake which depended
wholly upon electric operation of the air valves, after a splendid showing
at Burlington, failed entirely in its last attempt to make a stop ; the acci-
dent was due to the rupture of a conducting wire, and the train was brought
to a standstill by gravity. The circumstances connected with the elec-
trical phase of the Burlington trials well exemplified the foresight of West-
inghouse in dealing with new problems. He was the original inventor of
electro-pneumatic brakes, and presented at Burlington a simple method
of providing electric actuation of the air valves ; but, as we have seen, he
perfectly realized the great practical difficulties which would be encoun-
tered in an attempt to use electricity as it would have to be employed in
brake service, and felt sure that the electric art had not yet reached a
stage of development which would justify its adoption for that purpose.
He lived, however, to witness its successful application on subway trains
in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, the most critical and complex
system of passenger transportation in the world.

98 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

giant's job to which he laid his hand. The cars
on which the trials of 1886 and 1887 had been made
were the property of his company ; and he pro-
ceeded to arrange with the Chicago, Burlington, and
Quincy Railroad management for the use of such
locomotives and tracks as would enable him to
experiment under the same conditions and on the
same ground as those of the public trials. All the
resources and all the employees available he kept
at work day and night without cessation ; the ma-
terials required from time to time, in every instance
covering more than a carload, he ordered shipped
from Pittsburgh to Burlington by express instead of
freight, so that no time should be lost ; and the
experimental train of fifty cars had to be refitted,
from stem to stern, not less than three times before
he was satisfied with its work. But when, toward
the close of September, the hindmost brake on the
train clutched its wheel substantially the instant
after the engineer's movement of his valve, his
triumph made up for all the trouble he had under-
gone ; for the last ground of criticism against the
use of compressed air unaided by electricity in the
operation of power brakes on long freight trains
was disposed of.

Nor does the story end here. As the experiments
outlined above had been wholly unofficial, and
hence could not be formally authenticated by the
committee of the Master Car Builders' Association,
it was feared that inaccurate accounts might leak
out and bias the judgment of interested parties.
The Westinghouse Air Brake Company therefore

THE BATTLE OF THE BRAKES 99

decided to repeat the Burlington experiments in a
number of important railroad centers like St. Paul,
Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Buffalo,
Albany, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Wash-
ington, and Pittsburgh. To do this it was necessary
to run the entire train of fifty cars from point to
point, requiring two engines and in a few instances
three, and involving operation under all the handicaps
incidental to regular traffic. The fact that the
train was nearly a half-mile long added to its diffi-
culties, as it had to be conveyed over many roads
the grades of which limited the length of trains to
a much smaller number of cars.

One of the experiments which demonstrated
the effectiveness of the latest improvements was
dramatically interesting. With a fifty-car train
at rest, observers were stationed at its rear end,
and at a prearranged signal the engineer applied
the brakes on the locomotive and blew the whistle
at the same instant ; and the sound of the whistle
and the noise of the application of the brakes on
the fiftieth car, about two thousand feet away,
were practically simultaneous, showing that the
transmission of power through the train was approxi-
mately at the speed of a sound wave.

Wherever a demonstration was made, invitations
were extended to all local railroad men and others
interested, and nearly every one was accepted.
The final exhibition was at Pittsburgh in November,
and was the concluding act in a development of the
art of train braking carried on for a year at a total
expense of probably not less than two hundred

ioo GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

thousand dollars. The result obtained at so heavy
a cost brought in immediately, however, large orders
for the new brakes. The great trunk lines like the
New York Central and Pennsylvania systems, adopt-
ing the quick-action brake as their standard, applied
it not only to all the new cars they built, but also
to their old cars that required general repairs.

The Master Car Builders' Association proceed-
ings of 1888 included a report of its committee on
freight- train brakes to this effect :

In our report to the Convention last year the main
conclusion we arrived at was that the best type of
brake for freight service was one operated by air,
and in which the valves were actuated by electricity.
Since that time your committee has not made any
further trial of brakes, but the aspect of the ques-
tion has been much changed by the remarkable
results achieved in non-official trials which have
taken place in various parts of the country, and
have been witnessed by many of the members of
this association. These trials show that there is
now a brake on the market which can be relied on
as efficient in any condition of freight service. The
present position of the freight-train brake is briefly
as follows :

" First. Brakes can be, practically speaking,
simultaneously applied without electricity through-
out a train of fifty freight cars.

" Second. Other inventors are working at the
problem of making an air brake which will be rapid
in action and suitable for service on freight trains.
We also understand that inventors are working
at buffer and electric friction brakes, but we have
no reason to hope that brakes upon these principles
can successfully compete with air brakes."

THE BATTLE OF THE BRAKES 101

In view of these conditions, your committee
does not recommend the adoption of any particular
brake, but considers that a freight train brake
should fulfill the following conditions :

" First. It shall work with air of seventy pounds
pressure. A reduction of eight pounds shall set
the brakes lightly, and a restoration of pressure
shall release the brakes.

" Second. It shall work without shock on a
train of fifty cars.

"Third. It shall stop a train of fifty empty freight
cars when running at twenty miles per hour within
two hundred feet on a level.

"Fourth. When tried on a train of fifty cars it
shall maintain an even speed of fifteen miles an hour
down a grade of fifty-three feet per mile without
variation of more than five miles per hour above or
below that speed at any time during the descent.

"Fifth. The brakes shall be capable of being
applied, released, and graduated on the whole train
by the engineer, without any assistance from the
brakemen or conductor.

"Sixth. The hose coupling shall couple with the
present Westinghouse coupling."

That ended what has been picturesquely styled
"the battle of the brakes," for, though it was lit-
erally true that the report contained the recommenda-
tion of no particular brake by name, its list of condi-
tions which the ideal brake must meet could be ful-
filled by no invention except Westinghouse's. The
committee was discharged with the thanks of the
Association after three years of arduous and pains-
taking investigation, of which by no means the
least important outcome was an effective stirring
of the public conscience on the subject of saving

102 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

the lives and limbs of trainmen. Before the Bur-
lington trials the subject of legislation making com-
pulsory the use of power brakes on freight trains,
though agitated by several benevolent persons
and societies, had received but scant practical
consideration, probably because it would have been
futile to attempt to compel the use of a device not
yet invented. Since the introduction of the quick-
action brake, however, Congress has imposed the
use of power brakes on all railways engaged in in-
terstate commerce.

It must not be assumed that either his extraordi-
nary activity in building up his air-brake industry
in this country, or his frequent visits to Europe,
had driven all other topics out of the mind of young
Westinghouse. As early as 1875, during a stay
in England, his curiosity was excited by some
experiments in progress there with devices for rail-
road switching and signaling. It does not appear
that at that time he undertook any improvements
on the apparatus then under test ; but his growing
interest in the subject was preparing to bear prac-
tical fruit later, for we find him looking into the
state of the art in the United States, and presently
purchasing enough stock to give him control of the
Interlocking Switch and Signal Company of Harris-
burg, Pennsylvania, which owned a number of
highly important patents on switching devices such
as are used in steering a multitude of trains into
and out of a great terminal station without confu-
sion. His next move was to turn over his control
of the company, together with a similar control

THE BATTLE OF THE BRAKES 103

he had acquired in the management of a Massachu-
setts company manufacturing electric signal appa-
ratus, to a corporation styled the Union Switch
and Signal Company, originally chartered in Con-
necticut but later in Pennsylvania. The Massa-
chusetts member of the combination, it may be
remarked in passing, was the first to employ the
method of controlling signals by using the rails as
electric conductors on the closed circuit principle -
probably the most important single contribution
to the art of signaling.

Meanwhile the busy mind of Westinghouse had
been working out sundry details which took pal-
pable form in a series of patents covering hydro-
pneumatic and electro-pneumatic signaling — obvi-
ously the outgrowth of the familiarity gained with
the properties and potentialities of compressed air
during his long study of his braking problems.
The first of these was issued on February I, 1881,
and between then and 1891 there were fifteen issues
in his name. He also was a liberal buyer of other
men's patents which in his judgment possessed
essential merit. His first experimental mechanisms
seem to have been hydro-pneumatic, but soon these
were discarded in favor of electro-pneumatic devices,
which have been tersely described by a distinguished
engineer as " using compressed air for the heavy
work, and electricity to pull the trigger. "

A block system of safety signals was by no means
a new idea at the time Westinghouse entered the
field. Leading railways had for many years been
dividing their trackage into sections or blocks from

104 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE ,

a half-mile to four miles in length, and establishing
at every junction of two blocks a signal station with
a man in charge. This man would set a danger
signal against coming trains until the man at the
station next ahead telegraphed him that the track
between them was clear of trains ; then he would
set an "all right" signal, and engineers were for-
bidden to pass from one block to another till this
signal appeared. The arrangement was admirable
as far as it went ; but, as is always the case where
mechanisms require human ' intelligence and mus-
cular effort to manage them, it involved a margin
of uncertainty. A watchman on night duty might
drop asleep, or one on day duty might be suddenly
overcome with illness, or any of a dozen conceivable
mishaps might break the human link in the chain
of operation and open the way for disaster. It was
therefore deemed desirable to substitute automatic
for human energy wherever practicable. In the
electro-pneumatic system, as developed since West-
inghouse entered the field, electricity has been
made to do the watching and compressed air the
signaling.

The chief and fundamental advantage of the auto-
matic electric system over that into which a human
agency must enter, is that, if a switch is turned or
a rail broken, the continuity of the rails on that
block, which carry the electric current that operates
the signals, is broken, and the danger signal is set
automatically. Many other ingenious devices have
been put forth by this company, with the same
electro-pneumatic cooperation for a basis, including

THE BATTLE OF THE BRAKES 105

one that automatically sets the brakes if a train
passes a danger signal unheeded.

In the department of railroading we have just
been considering, not less than in that to which he
first addressed himself, the paramount object West-
inghouse always held in view was to obtain the
utmost utility in service compatible with the mini-
mum peril to life and limb.

CHAPTER VIII
OPENING A MINE OF GASEOUS WEALTH

THE winter of 1883-1884 was passed by Mr.
and Mrs. Westinghouse in New York City, where,
early in the new year, a great happiness came to
them with the birth of a son. It had been their
desire to return to Pittsburgh as soon thereafter
as would be prudent for mother and child, and with
the coming of spring the family moved back.

In the home newspapers which had reached Mr.
Westinghouse in New York had appeared so many
references to the development of natural gas in
Murrysville, a suburb of Pittsburgh, that his at-
tention was strongly drawn to this subject. It
had been known for all of fifty years that in vari-
ous parts of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, gas
was to be had for the boring ; still, no scientific
estimates had been made of its abundance, and
only a few manufacturers had seriously attempted
to harness it for industrial purposes. As is so often
the case with a product which has been evolved
as one of the incidentals to a familiar operation,
this gas was regarded as an interesting but not
very valuable by-product of oil development, and
those persons who did anything at all with it treated

OPENING A MINE OF GASEOUS WEALTH 107

it more or less like a toy. But a balance had re-
cently been struck in some experiments made at
one large factory, the figures of which had caught
the eye of Mr. Westinghouse and held it by their
showing that in this plant the work performed by
gas, besides being as satisfactory as that of any
other fuel that had been tried, had effected a sav-
ing of a good many thousand dollars in a single
year. If this were possible on a small scale, he
asked himself, what might not be accomplished for
the public profit and convenience if such a fuel
could be made universally available ?

As the train drew them nearer home, he opened
the subject in conversation with his wife.

"You'd soon get as much absorbed in natural
gas as you used to be in brakes when we first
married/' she answered in a jesting way; "but
the brakes had one advantage over gas — you could
always work out your problems at home, instead
of running off to Murrysville every day."

"I can work out my problems at home just the
same," he laughed in response; "that is, if you
don't mind my boring a well through your flower
beds. But don't charge me too much for the privi-
lege. I dare say it will cost me five thousand dol-
lars just to sink the hole and pipe it."

To the friends who heard gossipy echoes of this
conversation, it seemed merely an exchange of
harmless pleasantries; but those who passed the
premises soon afterward realized that there had
been something more than fun behind it. For
there, not in the flower garden to be sure but back

io8 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

by the stable, stood the tangible evidences of an
intention to probe the bowels of the earth, and a
gang of men were already at work taking away
the cut sod and stacking close at hand the neces-
sary piping.

Day after day the chug-chug of the engine and
the muffled stroke of the drill as it buried itself
deeper and deeper in the earth kept the air in the
neighborhood of the Westinghouse place vibrating,
and furnished a text for a running fire of comment
from the neighbors, some of it technically critical
or inquisitive, some skeptical or semi-satirical. As
a rule the people of Pittsburgh had already learned
better than to question too boldly the probabilities
of any large enterprise into which George Westing-
house went with a show of confidence, but a good
many still were of open mind as to the practical
value of such operations as he was conducting on
his private grounds. An occasional glimpse could
be caught of him at night, clad in overalls and
standing near the men, watching every new develop-
ment with the keenest concern ; now giving an
order, now consulting with the gang-boss, but never
taking his eyes or his mind off whatever was in
progress as long as he remained close at hand.

Nearly three weeks had been expended on the
work, and a few of the ultra-wise heads had been
shaken in doubt, when the foreman in charge one
evening reported that he had detected traces of
gas.

"How far down are you now?" asked Mr. West-
inghouse.

OPENING A MINE OF GASEOUS WEALTH 109

" About 1 560 feet."

"Are the signs of gas strong?"

"No, sir, weak; but I'm perfectly sure that a
good supply is there, or not far away."

"The only way to find out is to go on. Perhaps
by tomorrow we shall get results that amount to
something. Only, go slow --feel your way along.
Be very careful of the men, and warn them to take
no risks."

That night Mr. Westinghouse went to bed late,
fell into his usual sound sleep, and did not even
dream of his gas well till, just before sunrise, he
was roused with such suddenness that he sat bolt
upright in an instant, wide-awake and staring
around him. He was dimly conscious that what
had startled him must have been an explosion of
some sort; and --was that a continuing roar, or
an echo from a former volume of sound which was
still rumbling in his ears ?

He was out of bed in a flash, and a few minutes
later in the open air, not far from the spot where
he had been talking with the foreman the night
before. But what a change had come over the scene !
All about him and for many yards around, the lawn
looked like a ragged seabeach after a storm. Gravel,
sand, mud, dirty water, were everywhere, blanket-
ing the once trim sward and well-kept paths under
an indescribable mass of filth. The big, burly
derrick that stood over the well opening had evi-
dently received a severe blow, and a part of the
pulley tackle at its top was gone. The drilling appa-
ratus was nowhere to be seen at the moment, being

i io GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

hidden beneath debris. The engine had been tossed
aside like a squeezed orange, and lay some distance
away, looking as if it had been rolled over and over
in reaching its final resting place.

All these things he could make out only dimly.
There was a hint in the east of the approaching
dawn, and by holding his watch close to his eyes
he could discern that it was about twenty minutes
after three. Out of the mouth of the well a muddy
geyser was still spouting into the air, with a loud
noise that was between a hurricane roar and an
angry volcanic rumble.

After the first effect of what he was witnessing
had lost its vividness, he swept his surroundings
with his glance, wondering at the absence of the
men he had left there when he went to bed. A
little later they emerged from the shadows one by
one, like ghosts returning to a world from which
they had been suddenly banished. Strangers came,
too — persons who, within a mile radius, had been
sleeping as calmly as he till roused by the explosion
and set quaking with a nameless dread.

Item by item, in broken bits of explanation and
conversation, the facts came out. Acting on his
suggestion, the foreman had cautioned the work-
men to proceed slowly and with care, and the drill-
ing had gone on with such deliberateness that only
a matter of fifteen feet had been accomplished before
a savage growl issuing from the hole caused them to
drop everything and run for their lives. They were
not a minute too soon. Behind them as they fled
for cover rose a great boom and roar, and then

OPENING A MINE OF GASEOUS WEALTH in

a shower of water, mud, and gravel which the light
breeze spread about. Nobody had waited to see
what more was coming, and the next thing they
noted was the appearance of the master of the estab-
lishment on the scene.

The first expression of Mrs. Westinghouse as she
looked out upon the spectacle of devastation a few
minutes later was one of comic dismay. Her hus-
band smiled inquiringly as her eyes met his.

" All things considered," said he, "are you satisfied
with the experiment?"

"Oh, very well," she answered cheerfully. "The
house still has a roof on it, and the kitchen isn't
wrecked."

Breakfast was not much of a meal that morning :
both husband and wife were too absorbed with the
newest phenomenon.

The day was given up to devising ways and means
for clearing away the rubbish. This had to be
done at a disadvantage, because nobody about the
premises, including the drill-gang, could feel positive
as to what was coming next. The men had drilled
a good many wells, first and last, but not one with
the startling results of this performance.

Meanwhile the fountain of water and sand had
subsided, and been succeeded by a stream of pure
gas, which after a little lost its terrors as a novelty
and provoked the spectators to various experiments.
One man brought a chunk of coal weighing seven
or eight pounds, and swinging it back and forth to
get a tentative measure of distance, tossed it so that,
if not intercepted, it would strike the exposed top

112 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

of the piping. It went straight as directed, but,
instead of alighting on the aperture, it was caught
by the ascending jet of gas and lifted into the air
like a chip in a gale, striking one of the beams of
the derrick with great force and being smashed to
pieces. Another adventurer, with the aid of a friend,
dragged a heavy spruce plank to where they could
push it crosswise over the opening. The stream
of gas treated it as if it had been a strip of lath,
breaking it in twain and entirely splintering a frag-
ment that fell back so as partly to overhang the hole.
Then somebody suggested that the derrick might
be brought into play again to lower a big weight
directly into the mouth of the well. A rope was
attached to the upper rigging, and its loose end
made fast to a stone that weighed perhaps a hundred
pounds, and this was swung around so as to over-
hang the hole. The gas played with the intruder
like a straw, shaking the weight free, and then lift-
ing the loose rope into the air and holding it upright
there, as straight and stiff as a flagstaff.

For nearly a week thereafter there was little
sleep in the neighborhood, the well continuing to
roar unceasingly night and day. But the resource-
ful mind of the inventor had been at work, and
out of its cogitations emerged finally a stopcock
which was a triumph of indirection in application
and operation. By degrees the force of the flow
was abated till it was shut off altogether, and the
normal slumbers of the inhabitants of that part of
the town were resumed not to be broken again for
several nights. Then came some experiments in

OPENING A MINE OF GASEOUS WEALTH 113

the evenings to test the illuminating quality of the
gas. A pipe about sixty feet high had been built
up from the mouth of the well, with a pulley fastened
to its top, carrying a wire rope, the extremities of
which dangled on the ground. To one of these
extremities was attached a bundle of rags saturated
with oil.

When all was ready, at a given signal the stopcock
was turned so as to let the gas into the overhead
pipe, and at the same time a match was applied to
the rags and workmen began pulling on the free
end of the rope. The burning torch ascended slowly
till it reached almost the top of the rigging. Then
a sudden strong pull finished its ascent, and a
faint bluish flame was observed surrounding the rim
of the pipe. The next instant, like a lightning
flash connecting heaven and earth, a pillar of fire
shot a hundred feet upward into the sky and was
followed by a steady fountain of flame that was a
marvelous study in colors. At its base was a jet
of blue, brightening into pale yellow as it ascended,
then becoming a dazzling white, and expanding like
a tubular fan, the outer edges passing through vari-
ous shades of yellow and orange into a sort of Indian
red. The gas lamps of the city dwindled to little
points of light, and persons in the street not less than
a mile away were able to read distinctly the finest
newspaper print by the light of the gigantic natural
flambeau on the heights of ''Solitude.'*

Unhappily the roaring noise which had so dis-
turbed the repose of the neighbors at the outset
was resumed while the gas was burning. It was

114 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

not so bad as at first, but it was a serious enough
nuisance to demand moderating. So, after the
experiments had been repeated, with variations
of detail, till the possibilities of the illuminant had
been pretty well canvassed, the evening performances
ceased, and Mr. Westinghouse announced that he
was perfecting plans to connect his well with a sys-
tem of city mains and dispense light and heat, and
incidentally power, over a considerable area. The
gas, he was satisfied, was of a quality markedly
superior to anything produced by artificial processes,
yet capable of being sold at a low price with a good
profit. One of the large manufacturing concerns
in Pittsburgh which was already using* natural gas
with fine effect was compelled to bring every foot
of its supply from Murrysville, twenty miles away,
at a cost of one hundred and twenty thousand dol-
lars a year, and in a single ward a local company
was collecting three hundred thousand dollars a
year in gas bills. In yet other ways the Westing-
house discovery promised to work wonders for
Pittsburgh ; in none more potent than in changing
a notoriously dirty city into a clean one.

But along with the bright prospects of the new
enterprise came some decided drawbacks to be reck-
oned with. One of these was the exaggerated
spontaneity of the supply, making it difficult to
pinion it down to the work required of it. Gas
artificially produced could of course be artificially
regulated as well, but nature was a less compliant
servant. The pressure she furnished was not meas-
ured by the immediate needs of the consumer or

OPENING A MINE OF GASEOUS WEALTH 115

the peculiar exigencies of a situation : it came al-
ways and everywhere with unrestrained force, and
the problem now before Westinghouse was how to
make it obedient to the will of its employer. This
demand was emphasized by the appearance in the
newspapers, almost daily, of accounts of explosions
or other accidents due to ill-regulated pressure, or
popular ignorance of the best way of managing the
unfamiliar fluid. Being invisible and almost odor-
less, it was always a menace, and its tremendous
pressure forced it through every minute crevice,
where, even if it were escaping from a carefully
sunken main, it was liable to find its way through
the softer spots in the soil. An accident resulting
from this cause, which excited a great commotion
in Pittsburgh and set everybody talking of the
perils one must face in using natural gas, occurred
in one of the large stables where a hostler struck
a match one evening to light his lantern. A terrific
explosion followed. The man was blown thirty
feet through the air, a valuable horse was instantly
killed, and the building was set afire and wrecked.
It was then recalled that the stable stood on made
ground ; and as this was the case with most of the
mills along the river front, there was, for a while,
something like a suppressed panic in local manu-
facturing circles.

The underwriting companies, too, took a hand in
the discussion, threatening to raise their rates to
what would have been substantially prohibitory
figures, unless changes were made in the method of
transporting so dangerous an explosive. Some went

ii6 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

to the length of actually serving notice of the can-
cellation of certain outstanding contracts at a given
future date. The first thing Westinghouse did,
therefore, after arranging for the organization of
a company for the distribution and sale of the gas
from his well, was to invent a system of transporta-
tion. His initial improvement was to use two pipes,
one inside of the other. The inner pipe received
the gas from the original source, and carried it to
the entrances of the manufacturing establishments,
where its pressure remained nearly as at the well.
On the way, however, it was subject to constant
leakage, the pressure forcing infinitesimal jets through
the interstices in the joints of the pipe. But this
leakage, instead of passing into the earth, and so
on to cellars or other confined places where it was
dangerous, was caught in the outer pipe and then
permitted to escape to the atmosphere at a point
of safety. In later practice the joints of the convey-
ing pipe only were inclosed with a protecting cover,
which was equivalent to the double pipe and greatly
reduced the cost as compared with using two com-
plete lines of piping. Westinghouse also, in order
to reduce the cost of piping and dangers from undue
pressure, and make the ultimate product more
amenable to control for industrial purposes, arranged
a system of pipes of graded capacities, so that the
smallest took the gas directly from the well and the
larger ones allowed it an opportunity for expansion
till, by the time it was furnished to the consumer,
it was as easy to manage as gas produced from coal
by the ordinary process.

OPENING A MINE OF GASEOUS WEALTH 117

One of the details he had to work out gave West-
inghouse a good deal of trouble, and not a few of
his friends predicted that he would never be able
to devise a satisfactory apparatus. Their skepticism
merely stimulated him to fresh effort, which ulti-
mately led to the production of a mechanism chiefly
employed for domestic purposes and so arranged as
to prevent a class of explosive accidents that had
resulted in several fatalities.

For unavoidable reasons, the supply of gas was
not infrequently interrupted without notice to users,
and in such instances the fires would go out. When
the gas was again turned on in the mains, if the
outlets had not been closed, there would be an escape
of gas which often, on account of its lack of odor,
was not noticed until an attempt was made to re-
light the fire. If there was an accumulation of gas,
as was commonly the case, disastrous results would
follow, and it became increasingly evident that some
precaution was necessary, more effective than a
mere admonition to the users to exercise great care.
The problem was solved by the invention of a cut-off
valve device, located in the supply pipe where gas
was taken from the street mains into the building,
and so organized that if, for any reason, gas was shut
off from the mains, the valve automatically closed
and could not be opened again until all the connec-
tions in the building had been cut off.

The many advantages of gas for fuel purposes,
as demonstrated on a vast scale in the natural gas
development in Pittsburgh, at once awakened in
the mind of Mr. Westinghouse great interest in the

ii8 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

problem of the production of an artificial fuel gas
that could be made available for localities removed
from the natural gas fields. In cooperation with
noted gas engineers he undertook a series of experi-
ments extending over many years and involving
large expenditures, hoping that a process for manu-
facturing gas might be developed that would make
its general use for fuel purposes commercial. The
net result of his investigations, though not ma-
terially advancing the art, led incidentally to the
development of a producer for making gas from
bituminous coal, that was a marked improvement
upon similar devices then on the market. Its manu-
facture is still successfully continued.

CHAPTER IX
WHAT THE GAS DID FOR PITTSBURGH

THE difficulties of the situation were not confined
to the solution of the problems already described.
In order to carry gas from his well to the consumers,
it was necessary for Westinghouse to obtain per-
mission from the city authorities to lay pipes under
the streets, and this meant tearing up pavements
and more or less other disturbance of the routine
of traffic. At once arose a commotion. Certain
local dispensers of illuminating gas saw a peril to
their business in the threatened invasion of the field
by this "amateur", as they styled him, and their
friends in the municipal Councils and on the press
were encouraged to throw all sorts of obstacles into
his way. He took pains at the outset to make it
plain that he had no intentidn of asking a conces-
sion from the city without giving something in re-
turn, and his first application embraced an offer,
if allowed to lay his pipes as indicated, to furnish
the fire-engine houses and police stations with gas
free of cost.

He was careful also to declare that he had no
ambition to hold the sole control of the commodity,
to make exorbitant profits, or to dictate arbitrary

120 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

terms to any manufacturing interest, but would
prefer a cooperative arrangement, whereby the
business concerns that were likely to derive most
advantage from the use of the gas should go in with
him and share the advantages of his enterprise.
"What I am seeking now," he said, "is to distribute
the benefits of this discovery, receiving merely a
fair compensation for my property -- nothing

more."

The first objection raised was that to grant to
one person or company a privilege which was not
thrown open on similar terms to whoever desired
it would lead to all sorts of abuses, for the only way
in which such a grant could be kept from putting
the whole community under the yoke of a monopoly
was to give to every applicant a permit to rip the
highway to pieces, and for eminently practical
reasons that seemed out of the question. A struggle
of several weeks in the Councils ensued, the bone of
contention being an ordinance so drawn, with the
approval of Mr. Westinghouse, as to hinge his grant
on the condition that he would undertake to convey
the gas of any other producer through his pipes up
to their capacity, the charge for such service to be
arranged between him and his customers, and any
disagreement referred to a trio of arbitrators. With
every fresh outburst of opposition the reporters
would run to him for an interview, evidently hoping
to draw forth something in the way of a sensational
denunciation ; but he remained perfectly equable
in mind and temper.

The old apprehensions excited by the explosive

WHAT THE GAS DID FOR PITTSBURGH 121

quality of the gas were revived from time to time
by some casualty, of which the hostile combination
could always be trusted to make the most strenuous
use. One such occurred at "Solitude" which would
have given his opponents a fine weapon if they had
not fallen into the blunder of gross exaggeration
in their first accounts of it and thus invited an anti-
climax in its popular effect. Two workmen employed
to remove the outer pipe or casing at the mouth of
the pioneer well and substitute another encountered
a refractory joint, and ran a steel drill down beside
it to loosen it. As nearly as they could remember
the details later, they kept the drill wet all the time ;
but the impact of the metals apparently produced
a spark which ignited a jet of escaping gas, and in
an instant they were in the midst of a sheet of flame
and almost suffocated. The blaze burned their
eyes, faces, necks, shoulders and hands. With a
cry they staggered back and threw themselves into
a bed of long grass, while other men working near
by rushed to their assistance. An alarm was sent
to the nearest engine houses, and two hose compa-
nies were presently on the spot and playing streams
upon the combustibles about the well, and, with
the aid of a length of pipe and some wet blankets,
the fire was suppressed. The speed with which
everything was done doubtless saved the day ; but
it did not prevent the wide circulation of a rumor
that some laborers had been killed by gas on the
Westinghouse place, and within an hour the yard
was swarming with citizens and newspaper emis-
saries. Instead of the tragedy for which they were

122 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

looking, they found Mrs. Westinghouse taking care
of two badly scorched workmen, for whom she had
summoned her family physician. And thus an
episode which the opposition at first counted upon
to stir up public sentiment against further encour-
agement to the natural gas industry in Pittsburgh
came to naught.

In due course, the Councils passed the desired
ordinance, substantially as at first proposed. Mean-
while Mr. Westinghouse had organized a number of
small companies, designed to divide between them
the territory in which they should be the first comers
in the field. There were not lacking, in the well
on the "Solitude" estate, certain disquieting symp-
toms, which he interpreted to mean that he could
not afford to rely upon that alone for his supply
if he were going into the gas business on the scale
he had in mind ; so he drilled two or three more
wells on his own premises and bought easements on
many other pieces of property in the Murrysville
district and elsewhere, and it was for handling these
and making them tributary to the central concern
that he organized his group of lesser companies.

But how was he to acquire the powers necessary
to a corporation of the magnitude he wished to build
up? It would have to procure rights of way by
either purchase or condemnation before it could
lay its pipes across private property anywhere.
Besides that it must find, in Pittsburgh proper,
some means of getting around an obstacle. The
Fuel Gas Company, the head and soul of the opposi-
tion, had organized under an old law of Pennsyl-

WHAT THE GAS DID FOR PITTSBURGH 123

vania which conferred upon the public utility cor-
poration of this character that was first to enter
any given municipality a monopoly of its business
there. Soon after the enactment of this statute
there had been a tremendous activity in the creation
of corporations, but a multitude of these mushroom
affairs had since collapsed under the withering effect
of a statute which conserved the life only of those
that had been regularly organized to do business
before its passage. John Dalzell, then engaged
in the private practice of law in Pittsburgh and later
a member of Congress, was Mr. Westinghouse's
attorney, and to him Mr. Westinghouse turned in
this emergency. Mr. Dalzell recalled the fact that
several companies had taken out charters and gone
into business under the old system, had bridged
over the gap between the old and the new, and later
had ceased to be active. As the capital of the
State was the place where the records covering such
matters were most likely to be -available, he hastened
to Harrisburg, where he laid the matter before an
old professional friend who promptly announced :
"I can put my hand upon the very thing you wish.
Tom Scott procured from the legislature years
ago a special charter for a corporation called the
Philadelphia Company. He wanted it for the pur-
pose of building a branch railroad tributary to the
Pennsylvania system, but never used it, and in
time it passed into other hands. This charter was
so drawn that under it you can do almost anything
you care to except engage in the business of bank-
ing. You can run a railroad, furnish a city with

124 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

water, conduct a public cemetery, develop an oil-
field - "

"Or produce and distribute natural gas?" sug-
gested Dalzell.

"Surely."

"Then how does it come to be now on the market ?
Why isn't some one using it?"

"Well, that's hard to say. Whoever got hold
of it finally proved a delinquent taxpayer, and the
charter was sold under the hammer. I bid it in ;
and as the rights conveyed by it pass unimpaired
to the purchaser at a tax sale, the charter is as good
today as it was on the day the Governor signed it."

"How much can we get it for?"

"Thirty-five thousand dollars."

Dalzell whistled, but as his friend declined to
consider any lower terms he carried the offer back
to Pittsburgh with some misgivings. Mr. West-
inghouse, instead of being irritated at the price
named, received the news with apparent satisfaction,
remarking :

" If the charter is all that is represented, I'll buy it.
Go over it carefully and give me your written opinion."

Dalzell did so, reported in favor of the charter,
and the money passed. Equipped now with all
the weapons necessary for his fight with his confed-
erated rivals, Westinghouse proceeded to launch
the Philadelphia Company in its new domain.

Two special conditions contributed largely to
hamper this undertaking. Not long before the com-
pany announced itself ready for business, the Penn
Bank, a financial institution of supposed soundness

WHAT THE GAS DID FOR PITTSBURGH 125

in which a great many Pittsburghers were deposi-
tors, had suddenly collapsed, and a series of mer-
cantile failures occurred in and about the city. In
these circumstances, few people were favorably
inclined toward new and untested lines of invest-
ment. Then, also, a popular doubt had sprung
up, industriously cultivated by the hostile combina-
tion, as to how long the supply of natural gas would
continue sufficient in quantity to meet the extraordi-
nary drafts which would be made upon it if all the
mills in the Pittsburgh district were to substitute
gas for coal. One statistician whose opinion was
generally regarded as reliable published an estimate
that the total consumption, including both manu-
facturing establishments and houses, but excluding
blast furnaces, would run as high as thirty million
feet a day. The local population, not accustomed
to figures of this magnitude, were taken by surprise,
and they had not yet fully recovered their breath
when Mr. Westinghouse, to whom the estimate
had been carried for criticism, met it, not with denials
or evasions, but with the still more startling declara-
tion that the probabilities pointed to nearer four
hundred million feet. His own idea was that the
frankness of this announcement would tend to re-
store confidence rather than shake it further. He
discussed the matter on this basis with an old friend
whom he often consulted about financing problems,
and who presently inquired: "At what capitaliza-
tion do you purpose starting your company ?"

"In view of all the chances we must take," he
answered, "I don't believe we can afford to have

126 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

less than six million dollars to begin with. How
does it look to you?"

"Your scheme is grand. If you had the wealth
of the Indies to draw upon for making it go, you
would rank with the world's great benefactors.
But when you reflect that you have got to woo
every one of those dollars from the purse of some
one whose fright over recent events has made a
dollar within reach look bigger than ten dollars he
will have to wait for, you are tackling no light job."

"'Woo7? 'Fright'?" echoed Westinghouse. "Why,
man, you don't know what you are talking about.
There isn't a manufacturer in Pittsburgh so blind
as not to be able to see what the future has in store
for us here. When we announce that we are ready
for subscriptions to our stock, there will be a rush
for shares such as you have never seen or dreamed
of. I shouldn't wonder if we had to engage a squad
of police to keep order !"

In the Pittsburgh newspapers of August 4, 1884,
appeared an advertisement filling between three
and four columns, setting forth the prospectus of
the Philadelphia Company, naming as its officers
George Westinghouse, Junior, president, Robert
Pitcairn, vice president, John Caldwell, secretary
and treasurer. The board of directors included
with these officers H. H. Westinghouse and John
Dalzell. T. A. Gillespie also was mentioned as a
stockholder, but with no office. The company,
it appeared, owned all the gas rights on the "Soli-
tude" property and sundry other tracts where it
had already drilled wells or might thereafter drill

WHAT THE GAS DID FOR PITTSBURGH 127

them, as well as Westinghouse's patent Number
301,191, for a " system for conveying and utilizing
gas under pressure", covering the features referred
to in a previous chapter.

Possibly his consultation with his old friend was
responsible for a slight change in the original plan,
for we find that the capital stock of the company
was fixed, for the time being, at only one hundred
thousand dollars, although the advertisement an-
nounces an intention to increase this to five million
dollars, " so that funds may be secured to operate
largely in the distribution and supply of natural
gas at whatever points, within the Commonwealth
or without, there may be demand therefor." With
the increase of capital, the gas wells and potentially
productive territory controlled by Westinghouse,
his patent on pipes for transporting gas, and the
charter of the company, were to be put in at a valua-
tion of two million, five hundred and fifty thousand
dollars, the remainder of the five million dollars
stock being offered to the public for subscription.
This advertisement was repeated four times at later
dates.

It is scarcely necessary to say that the expected
rush did not materialize, and that the banks which
had undertaken to receive subscriptions were able
to go on with their ordinary routine of daily trade.
After waiting long enough to satisfy himself that his
fellow citizens generally did not share his glowing
anticipations, Westinghouse made a canvass among
his circle of personal friends, reinforcing the pros-
pects held out in print with a running commentary

128 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

of his own. As always happened at close contact,
his enthusiasm proved infectious. In blocks rang-
ing from a hundred shares to several thousand, he
disposed of as much of the stock of the new corpora-
tion as was necessary to enable it to begin business,
and before very long the rumors that it was turning
out a money-maker caused a lively speculation in
its shares. Its first dividends were at the rate of
one per cent a month, but later it was thought
prudent to reduce this to eight per cent a year.
While Westinghouse was still its principal figure,
his company put up a splendid office building in
the heart of the business center of Pittsburgh,
where, from the upper windows, he could look over
at the strip of railroad track on which he made
his first demonstration of the practical operation
of his air brake.

In course of time, as some of the less hopeful
prophets had predicted, the local use of natural
gas for manufacturing was materially reduced. This
was due partly to the diminished product of the
near-by wells, which necessitated bringing in a supply
from distant fields and at an increased cost, and
partly to the comparative cheapness of the coal
mined almost at the doors of the city, which experts
have pronounced the finest manufacturing coal in
the world. But natural gas is still used almost
universally in Pittsburgh and its neighborhood for
domestic purposes, and to a considerable extent in
industrial lines.

While the direct results of the natural gas develop-
ment in the Pittsburgh district were vast in their

WHAT THE GAS DID FOR PITTSBURGH 129

financial aspect, the indirect consequences are more
difficult to comprehend or estimate. At about the
time when the availability of gas for manufacturing
purposes was demonstrated, the question of the
best location for the economical production of iron
and steel was receiving most serious consideration.
Iron ores had theretofore been brought from the
Northwest by lake and rail to Pittsburgh, because
of the presence there of an ample and cheap supply
of fuel necessary for the production of iron and steel.
Some point on the shores of Lake Erie where the fuel
and iron would meet, and thus save transshipment
of the ore, appeared to offer inducements in the way
of low production costs. The introduction of nat-
ural gas, however, for the time so changed condi-
tions as to induce the establishment in the vicinity
of Pittsburgh of many new large steel and iron
industries that otherwise would probably have
been located elsewhere. These have now become
permanent, and, though the increased cost of nat-
ural gas has restored the fuel and iron ore situation
to something like that which preceded the gas
development, there is no reason to apprehend that
the recognized availability of the Pittsburgh dis-
trict for steel and iron manufacture will be dis-
turbed.

Let it not be forgotten, either, that Pittsburgh
learned for a while what it meant to be clean. Dur-
ing the natural gas regime, the pall of soot which
had hung over the city for years, showering dirt
on everything, was lifted, and many householders
celebrated the relief by painting their dwellings

130 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

white. The soot has now come back in sufficient
quantity to be a nuisance, but ingenious minds are
working on devices to get finally rid of it, as they
would not have worked if the people had not enjoyed
one refreshing draught of something better. Mean-
while the Philadelphia Company has expanded
beyond recognition, adding one asset after another
to its possessions, till today it controls substantially
all the public utilities in the city and immediate
suburbs.

CHAPTER X
THE CONTEST OF THE CURRENTS

THE Westinghouse Machine Company was or-
ganized in 1880, originally to build high-speed en-
gines of a type invented by Herman Westinghouse.
A contract having been made with the Brush Elec-
tric Company to furnish it with these engines for
use with direct-driven dynamos in its system of
arc lighting, Herman had occasion to make a night
trip from New York to Boston, and in the smoking
room of his sleeper fell into conversation about his
errand with a young man who dropped the remark
that he, too, was interested in electric illumination,
but in a more immediate way, having recently in-
vented a self-regulating dynamo which he believed
would solve one of the most vexatious problems in
incandescent lighting. Up to that time the dynamos
made by the Edison Company, the leading concern
in the incandescent field, had required regulation by
hand in order to keep the current suitably propor-
tioned to the drafts made upon it ; without this,
the extinction of one lamp would throw an addi-
tional force into all the others drawing upon the
same source of supply, with a consequent waste
of both current and material. The self -regulating

132 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

dynamo, of course, eliminated the expense and
uncertainty of the human factor. The inventor
invited his new acquaintance to call on his return,
and look at the machine, introducing himself as
William Stanley, an electrical engineer by pro-
fession.

Although nothing of importance resulted immedi-
ately from this meeting, it paved the way for rela-
tions of much intimacy in later years, when George
Westinghouse, having become interested in what
he learned about the dynamo and about a lamp of
Stanley's invention, engaged the young man to
conduct sundry experiments in the same line at the
works of the Union Switch and Signal Company,
and out of these grew the first electrical apparatus
manufactured under the Westinghouse auspices.
The enterprise was not extensive in its beginnings,
consisting chiefly of supplying apparatus for incan-
descent lighting in competition with the Edison
Company, there being little difference between the
two systems except for the important self-regulat-
ing feature of the dynamo. One of its indirect
effects, however, was to bring sharply to the atten-
tion of Westinghouse the limitations of the direct
current system then exclusively employed for light-
ing and power purposes, ultimately leading to his
early identification of the great advantage to be
derived by the substitution of the alternating sys-
tem for the direct system. And thus we approach
the verge of one of the hardest fought wars that
ever occurred in the scientific field, the contest of
the currents.

THE CONTEST OF THE CURRENTS 133

For the reader's better understanding, it may be
said that a direct or continuous current is compa-
rable to water made to flow through a pipe always
in one direction, whereas an alternating current is
as if the same water were made to flow through the
pipe first in one direction and then in the other, the
reversals of direction occurring a great many times
in a single second --an expedition which would
be possible only in so imponderable an essence as
electricity. The result to the user of electricity is
practically the same with either system, except in
the matter of cost. With the direct system it is
necessary to generate and distribute the current at
a pressure, or voltage, that will not burn out the
filament of incandescent lamps. As this pressure
is relatively very low, and the quantity of electricity
that can be conveyed by wires is dependent upon
the pressure at which it is being distributed, the
cost of the conducting wires, constituting a large
part of the investment in an electric production and
distribution system, is greatly increased as compared
with the alternating system ; in the latter, very high
electrical pressures can be employed, with a pro-
portionate reduction in the cost of the distributing
wires, and then, by simple and cheap mechanisms,
transformed or converted to the required low pres-
sures at the point of use.

At the time we are now considering, the popular
impression was general that it would be out of the
question to employ the alternating current for
incandescent lighting, inasmuch as such high pres-
sures would burn out the filaments of incandescent

134 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

lamps. Moreover, there prevailed a widespread
terror of an invisible agent with such a capacity for
the destruction of life by shock and of property by
fire. To the discovery of some means whereby the
mighty resources of the alternating current could
be placed, with reasonable safety and for a price
not prohibitive, at the disposal of whoever wished
to use it for impelling the machinery of manufacture,
for lighting streets, halls and houses, or for easing
the difficulties of housekeeping, Mr. Westinghouse
directed his own ingenuity and devoted that of the
little scientific corps he gradually gathered about
him.

During one of her journeys abroad, Mrs. West-
inghouse had fallen dangerously ill and been restored
to health by the skill of an Italian physician named
Pantaleoni. Mr. Westinghouse was deeply grate-
ful, and, when he found that Guido Pantaleoni,
the doctor's son, had inherited a scientific bent,
he brought the young man to this country and gave
him a responsible position in the employ of the Union
Switch and Signal Company. Albert Schmid, a
Swiss engineer of great competence, whom Mr.
Westinghouse had met while looking into certain
arc-light experiments in Paris, came over about the
same time and was taken on, his special function
being to design and construct the dynamos needed
to carry into practical effect the discoveries reported
by Stanley from the laboratory. Member after
member was thus added to the staff, which later
included, as the chief's interest in electrical matters
grew more intense, Oliver B. Shallenberger, Nikola

MARGUERITE ERSKINE WESTINGHOUSE

THE CONTEST OF THE CURRENTS 135

Tesla, Reginald Belfield, Charles F. Scott, Lewis B.
Stillwell, Loyall A. Osborne, and several other
gifted and ambitious young engineers who have
since become famous in their own right.

The fundamental limitations of the direct current
system, already pointed out, had been fully developed
during the early '8os, and the exorbitant cost of
distribution, due to the heavy copper wire necessary
to be used, threatened to be still further enhanced
by an increase in the cost of copper. When to this
was added the multiplication of distributing sta-
tions necessitated by the short carrying distance
of the direct current, Westinghouse felt that hard
and fast bounds had been set to the expansion of
the industry. The London technical weekly, Engi-
neering, had paid unusual attention, as early as 1883,
to certain letters patent issued jointly in Great
Britain to a brace of collaborators, a French elec-
trician named Lucien Gaulard and an English engi-
neer named John Dixon Gibbs. Their invention
consisted of a system for distributing alternating
currents through "transformers", and their mech-
anism had made its first public appearance at an
electrical show held in the Westminster Aquarium.

The earlier printed references to the device seem
not to have particularly appealed to Westinghouse ;
but in the spring of 1885 he became very much
interested in some descriptive and illustrated articles
dealing with the electric lighting department of
an International Inventions Exhibition just opened
in South Kensington. On this occasion lamps
manufactured by his own company were among

136 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

the foreign products displayed. A competing con-
cern was showing a number of its lamps of different
types, every one fed by a current obtained from a
Gaulard-Gibbs "secondary generator", which, as
Engineering explained, was an apparatus designed
to make it possible to carry a large amount of elec-
trical energy on a small conductor, and draw it off
at various points in such quantities and under such
pressure conditions as might be required. From a
single small main were fed large and small arc lamps,
Jablochkoff candles and incandescent lamps, re-
quiring varying electromotive forces. At every
place where there was a lamp or group of lamps of
one character, a secondary generator or transformer
was inserted into the circuit, and a part of the
energy flowing in the main and primary circuit
was made to induce a corresponding and nearly
equal amount of energy in a local secondary circuit,
of the required electrical pressure.

On the strength of this testimony, Westinghouse
arranged to import a few of the Gaulard-Gibbs
transformers. They arrived in the autumn of 1885,
and the tests to which they were subjected by Mr.
Westinghouse's electricians of the Union Switch
and Signal Company during the next few months
satisfied him that the European inventors had hit
upon one idea for which he had long been searching ;
for his success in sending natural gas through rela-
tively small pipes and high pressure over long
distances, and distributing it to consumers under
reduced pressure, led him to believe that electric
current could in the same way be advantageously

THE CONTEST OF THE CURRENTS 137

distributed at high voltage and locally reduced by
transformers, or converters, as they then were
called. Mr. Stanley, with the assistance of some of
his junior colleagues, conducted a series of experi-
ments which showed that the serial system of Gau-
lard and Gibbs should be changed to a multiple-arc,
or parallel, arrangement of transformers. The dif-
ference may be illustrated in miniature by supposing
a current to be arranged to feed ten lamps, set
serially in a circle, by passing from lamp to lamp
over an intervening wire ; now, if anything happens
to one of the lamps and interrupts the current
there, all the lamps must go unfed ; whereas, if the
same ten lamps were separately supplied, each
having its individual wire to it from a common
main, any one could be cut off without stopping the
flow to the rest. This last condition illustrates
roughly the multiple-arc or parallel system, as
distinguished from the serial.

It was soon found that the ratio of transformation
of which the Gaulard-Gibbs converters were capable
was insufficient for the purposes the Company
had in view, and special transformers, therefore,
had to be designed. Westinghouse arranged with
Stanley, whose health had become impaired, to
go to Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and estab-
lish an experimental laboratory for the develop-
ment of better types of generators and transformers.
Here Stanley constructed about a dozen transformers
designed to reduce a five-hundred-volt main line
potential to one hundred volts in the secondary,
and, in the spring of 1886, placed these in successful

138 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

operation and lighted several stores in the village.
This was the first installation of the transformer
system in this country to furnish outside lighting.

Meanwhile, one afternoon in February, in the
first flush of satisfaction over some very recent
accomplishment, Mr. Westinghouse had telegraphed
Franklin L. Pope, his New York patent lawyer and
an expert in electrical science, to take the next day's
steamer for England. Pantaleoni, who was in Pitts-
burgh at the time, was dispatched by the first train
to New York to join Pope and accompany him
abroad. The interview at which he received his
instructions was short and to the point. The ex-
planation of the errand on which Pope and he were
about to start was condensed by Westinghouse into
a simple command to find Gaulard and Gibbs and
buy their patent rights for the United States, and
all the young man ventured to inquire was : "How
much are we to pay for the rights?"

'They'll tell you their price," was the terse re-
sponse. "Whatever it is, close the bargain, and
I'll send the money by cable to you."

Within a month the two men were back in this
country, bearing the assignment of the patent rights
desired, for which they had paid fifty thousand
dollars. Westinghouse had some difficulty at first
in getting his acquired rights recognized by our
Patent Office, but by September this tangle was
cut. His staff, who in the interval had been study-
ing the possibilities of this latest system of distri-
bution, now attacked their task afresh from their
better vantage ground.

THE CONTEST OF THE CURRENTS 139

A convenient opportunity having arisen for re-
moving the works of the Union Switch and Signal
Company to the suburb of Swissvale, its old quarters
in Garrison Alley, Pittsburgh, were fitted up as a
factory for making electrical apparatus, and a cor-
poration organized under the title of the Westing-
house Electric Company took over this branch of
the Union Switch and Signal Company's business.
Here was constructed a new alternating-current
constant-potential dynamo invented and designed
by Stanley. By the following autumn the Electric
Company was prepared to make an impressive
demonstration. A number of converters and four
hundred lamps were placed in a building at Lawrence-
ville, about four miles from the dynamo which was
operated at first to supply one thousand volts and
afterward two thousand. The lamps fed from this
current were kept burning continuously for a fort-
night. Westinghouse visited them daily to observe
their action. It was the first successful exhibition
ever made in the United States of the transmission
of electrical energy for any considerable distance
through the medium of the alternating current.
The same dynamo, with converters, was then
removed to Buffalo, New York, and placed in actual
service on the night before Thanksgiving, 1886.

The tests having gone far enough to leave no room
for doubt of what could be accomplished, orders
began to come in for the new apparatus, which
promised to revolutionize electric lighting by so
reducing the necessary cost as to put small towns
substantially on an equal footing with large ones as

I4o GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

to public illumination. Greensburg, about twenty
miles from Pittsburgh, is credited with having been
the first town to procure a complete municipal
plant using the Westinghouse alternating current
system. The business of the Company advanced
at a rate with which it was almost impossible to keep
apace in manufacturing ; the works had to be en-
larged, and within two years the force employed
there numbered three thousand men.

Not every obstacle, however, had yet been cleared
from the path of the new company. Of two things
it stood sorely in need : a meter which would accu-
rately gauge the amount of electrical energy dispensed
or applied, and a power motor. Both came soon.
In the spring of 1888, Shallenberger was examining
an arc lamp to which Lange, another of Westing-
house's engineers, had invited his attention, when a
small spiral spring chanced to drop out of place and
lodge upon the top of the magnet spool near the
projecting core. The friend was about to pick it
up, when Shallenberger caught his arm, saying
quickly : "Wait ! Let's see what makes that spring
revolve." The spring, which was about an inch in
length and of the diameter of a lead pencil, was
slowly rotating on its longitudinal axis. They
watched it silently for a while, when Shallenberger
exclaimed: "I will make a meter out of that!"
Precisely four weeks from that day he had a com-
pletely developed alternating-current meter to ex-
hibit to his colleagues, and by August it was ready
to place on the market.

It was to Tesla — described by one of his asso-

THE CONTEST OF THE CURRENTS 141

dates of those days as "an inspired genius, into
whose mind inventions sprang as the conception of
a great picture projects itself upon the imagination
of an artist" -that the Company owed its desired
motor. By an odd coincidence, on the day follow-
ing the incident with the meter, Ferrari published in
Italy a description of an electric motor operating on
essentially the same principle as the Shallenberger
meter ; and about four weeks later Tesla's descrip-
tion of his own motor was presented to the Ameri-
can Institute of Electrical Engineers in New York.
Tesla and Ferrari, separated by three thousand miles,
had independently of each other, but simultaneously,
worked out the theory on which the modern alter-
nating-current motor operates. Tesla was the earlier
accredited inventor of the motor itself, having filed
his applications for patents a considerable time
before the Ferrari publication, and his discoveries
went further than Ferrari's, including a polyphase
system which was more satisfactorily adapted to
the distribution of large power units.

It must not be supposed that all the more recent
activity of the Westinghouse Electric Company
had escaped the notice of the concerns engaged in
the manufacture of direct current electrical appa-
ratus. They had at first treated it as a passing
phase of business rivalry, but, with the develop-
ments just mentioned, they awoke to a realiza-
tion that a field which they had had for so long
practically to themselves had been invaded by a
rival too powerful to resist with merely defensive
tactics.

142 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

The aggressive warfare which was opened forth-
with upon George Westinghouse and his industry
can be fully appreciated only by reading the news-
papers of that day. Advertising columns, news
columns, and editorial columns were employed indis-
criminately to carry on the campaign, of which
anything like a full history would require several
volumes as large as this. The summary that fol-
lows, however, will suffice to indicate its scope and
spirit.

CHAPTER XI

THE STRUGGLE IN NEW YORK

IN pursuance of his custom of carrying his goods
to the largest market, Westinghouse took speedy
steps to introduce his lighting system into New York
city in competition with the systems already on the
spot. That was before the era of underground
telegraphy, and the streets had for years been dis-
figured with the unsightly poles laden with telegraph
and telephone wires ; so that, when electric illumina-
tion 'began its career there, such additional wires as
it required were, as a matter of course, strung in
like manner.

Although arc lights, fed by high potential direct
currents, had been obtrusively in evidence every-
where in New York since the early '8os, their feeding
mains appear to have aroused little criticism as a
nuisance ; but with the advent of the Westinghouse
enterprise, all overhead cables suddenly leaped into
prominence not only as eyesores but as a public peril.
Leading newspapers which till then had confined
their discussion to the expediency of exchanging gas
for electricity, began, with astonishing unanimity,
to make a display of every happening that could be

144 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

used to excite animosity in the popular mind toward
the alternating current. A boy peddler was killed
by contact with a wire that hung too low ; a repairer
was stricken while mending an insulator at the top
of a pole : at once the incidents were seized upon
and the most was made of them for their local effect,
regardless of how much or how little the character
of the current had to do with the matter. When a
horse stepped upon a fallen wire in Buffalo and it and
its driver were killed, or a wooden house in Pitts-
burgh was set ablaze by contact with an exposed
conductor, despatches descriptive of the painful
details, often rendered more lurid by the imaginative
narrator, were promptly telegraphed to New York.
A few dailies set up a special department for injuries
inflicted, damage suits entered, charitable funds
started for adults crippled or children orphaned -
all in consequence of the indifference of the great
mass of the citizens to the arch destroyer hovering
over their heads ! One fatal accident was exploited
through ten papers of the following day, in articles
from a half-column to five columns long, under this
variety of headings in exaggerated type :

Horrible Death of a Lineman.

The Wire's Fatal Grasp.

One Martyr More.

Wire Has Another Victim.

The Electric Murderer.

Another Lineman Roasted to Death.

Electric Wire Slaughter.

Again a Corpse in the Wires.

Death's Riot.

Electric Wires Add to Their List of Victims.

THE STRUGGLE IN NEW YORK 145

Abram S. Hewitt, Mayor of the city, was frantically
besought to take the law into his own hands, if need
be, and strip the wires from their places ; and a par-
ticularly strenuous journal carried its denunciation
of his inaction so far as to propose that he be arrested
and locked up or fined as accessory to "a carnival of
avoidable homicide." This line of agitation at first
appeared to come almost wholly from inexpert or at
least nonprofessional sources ; but presently arose
one Harold P. Brown, an electrician by calling, who,
not content with denouncing the survival of over-
head wires in a great city, made the alternating cur-
rent itself, wherever found or however used as a public
utility, an object of attack. He obtained the use
one day of a lecture room at the Columbia School of
Mines, and issued invitations to a demonstration he
was about to make of the difference between the
death-dealing alternating current and the compara-
tively harmless continuous current. He had in his
audience representatives of the municipal Board of
Electrical Control, several members of the Electrical
Institute, and a goodly group of reporters for the press.
After putting a big black dog to torture with applica-
tions of an alternate current at various pressures, he
dispatched the poor creature with a heavier shock, and
was about to produce a fresh victim when the super-
intendent of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Animals interfered.

"You've demonstrated how many volts will kill
a man," he exclaimed, "and that's enough. The
show can't go on !"

Brown protested, but to no avail ; so he left the

146 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

audience to muse on his statement that in former
tests, though he had applied a continuous current of
more than fourteen hundred volts to a dog without
producing death, he had repeatedly killed dogs with
from five to eight hundred volts of an alternating
current. The performance was most cleverly staged,
and for the ends Brown had in view its sudden inter-
ruption by a benevolent agent only heightened its
spectacular effect. The sole suggestion of an anti-
climax came when he issued a challenge to the unbe-
lieving.

"I am aware," said he, "that certain defenders of
the alternating current declare that they have re-
ceived a thousand volts without injury. Would
any one present like to take a thousand volts ?"

One skeptic promptly responded that he had a
friend there — an electrical expert — whom he would
put forward to take a thousand volts of alternating
current, if Brown would prove his faith by taking a
thousand volts of continuous current. Brown de-
clined on the ground that the proposal was foolish ;
and, as the friend who had been offered for sacrifice
on the altar of science seemed relieved at this retort,
the discussion ended and the gathering dispersed,
but not until Brown had oratorically declared that
the only places where the alternating current ought
to be permitted were " the dog pound, the slaughter
house, and the State prison." This last suggestion
derived a timely significance from the fact that the
New York legislature had, but a few weeks before,
amended the criminal code by the substitution of
electricity for hanging as the death penalty, and

THE STRUGGLE IN NEW YORK 147

Mr. Brown had been one of the authorities most
depended on by the special advocates of the change.

Mr. Westinghouse and his friends took pains to
make plain that they would welcome any practical
plan for taking all wires out of the air and running
them underground. The demands made upon Mayor
Hewitt were met with the calm response that he
would be most happy to remove all obstructions from
the highways as soon as he could see his way clear to
do so without producing more bad than good results ;
and that, instead of trying to drive any particular
electric system out of business, the more sensible
course would be to retain the benefits of all for the
public but subject their traffic to careful regula-
tion. Still there was no silencing the complainants,
whose continued assaults gradually wore upon the
nerves of their adversaries. The atmosphere be-
came, for a while, thick with the personalities, in-
cluding charges of interested motives and even of
bribery and fraud, volleyed back and forth between
the champions of the respective systems. Nobody
was spared. A letter written by ex-Governor Cornell
to the Mayor, urging the absolute prohibition of high-
tension circuits anywhere within the city limits,
came in for some sarcastic comments at a convention
of the National Electric Light Association held in
New York late in the summer of 1888.

Doctor P. H. Van der Weyde read a paper on the
"Comparative Danger of the Alternating vs. Direct
Currents" in which he declared that Brown's as-
sumptions on this head were erroneous because the
criterion on which he based his comparison was

148 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

scientifically defective, and added that, while danger
lurked in both, it was no greater in the alternating
than in the continuous system. The convention
attested its sympathy with this view by unanimously
adopting, amid great applause, a series of resolutions
condemning "the persistent efforts of rival interests
to educate the public to a distrust of high-potential
electric currents", as liable to instigate unfair legis-
lation, and declaring it " entirely possible to pro-
duce and distribute high-tension currents for pub-
lic use without any more danger or difficulty than
attends the distribution of gas and water in our
dwellings."

This unqualified assurance from an organization
representing the highest electrical talent in America
did not have its hoped-for effect upon the press,
which, though quoting it with every mark of respect
for the Association, continued to berate the alter-
nating current and its promoters. One newspaper
created a sensation in the slum districts, where pic-
tures appealed much more to the popular emotions
than any kind of reading matter, by spreading on
its first page a hideous cartoon showing a graveyard,
with headstones bearing the names of the victims of
the wires who had already been buried, and an open
grave, with a coffin beside it, waiting for the next on
the list. Interviewers pursued Westinghouse where-
ever he went, trying to lure him into some explosive
utterance against Thomas A. Edison, the chief expo-
nent of the continuous current, which might produce
a personal collision between the two inventors, and
thus set free a fund of spicy "copy." But on the

THE STRUGGLE IN NEW YORK 149

one or two occasions when he did consent to speak,
nothing more violent than this was forthcoming :

''The alternating current will kill people, of course.
So will gunpowder, and dynamite, and whisky, and
lots of other things ; but we have a system whereby
the deadly electricity of the alternating current can
do no harm unless a man is fool enough to swallow
a whole dynamo."

And in a letter to one paper which, though critical,
had seemed inclined to be fair, he wrote :

" The alternating current is less dangerous to life
from the fact that the momentary reversal of direc-
tion prevents decomposition of tissues, and injury
can result only from the general effect of the shock ;
whereas in a continuous current there is not only
the injury from the latter cause, but a positive
organic change from chemical decomposition, much
more rapid and injurious in its effects. A large
number of persons can be produced who have re-
ceived a one-thousand volt shock from alternating
currents without injury, and among them a wire-
man who became insensible and held his hand in
contact with the wires for a period of three minutes
without fatal results — in fact, was able to go on
with his work after a short period. . . .

" The alternating system not only permits the use
of a current of one thousand volts for street mains,
but requires its conversion into currents of fifty volts
or less for house-wiring. The converters are so con-
structed that the primary or street current can never
by any possibility enter the house. . . . No person
coming in contact with the alternating current as

150 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

used for domestic lighting would be aware of its
presence."

Even the most sober of the great periodicals were
drawn into the controversy. An article on "The
Dangers of Electric Lighting", arraigning the alter-
nating current, by Thomas A. Edison, appeared in
the North American Review, and "A Reply to Mr.
Edison", by George Westinghouse, in the next
month's number.

It was characteristic of the temper and methods of
the forces arrayed against him that no sooner were
they convinced that Westinghouse was sincere in his
desire for some practical plan for sinking the wires
underground than they began to cry out that, though
telephone and telegraph and other direct-current
wires might be placed there with safety, the alternat-
ing-current wires could not. A start had been made
upon a scheme of electric-wire subways, but the con-
tractors who had it in charge were so slow that the
work came presently to what amounted to a dead
standstill. In the midst of the turmoil Hugh J.
Grant succeeded to the mayoralty, and his office
became the storm-center of a tremendous struggle
which lasted about two years, and was punctuated
at intervals by court orders, injunctions, and counter-
injunctions, and by raids made upon the overhead
wires by gangs of municipal employees under orders
to cut away all that were improperly insulated,
obstructively hung, or otherwise liable to be dan-
gerous.

Many of the laborers employed in these forays,
not being trained for their task, made costly mistakes

THE STRUGGLE IN NEW YORK 151

of indiscrimination, cutting inoffensive wires and
severing important connections. As a result, the
great city was left almost in darkness at times, as
arrangements for going back to lighting the streets
with gas were not easily perfected. But finally
peace was restored on a basis which, if not to the
entire satisfaction of all parties, at least permitted
the subway system to be finished and the overhead
wires transferred to it ; and, but for an occasional
quarrel over rental privileges or the like, New York
resumed its normal night illumination, and something
like order settled down where chaos had reigned
before.

In view of the generally efficient electric service
enjoyed by all cities now, and the enormous extent
to which the alternating current has come to be used
for lighting, cooking, running machinery large and
small, and after-dark advertising, with comparative
freedom from casualties, it is amusing to recall the
dismal warnings put forth by as brilliant a man as
Mr. Edison a generation ago. He was freely quoted
in newspaper interviews as positive that no known
method of insulation could render a high-tension
alternating wire safe ; and that, as for subways,
they would not lessen the danger, because the high-
tension current would burn out the tubes and enter
dwellings through the manholes. He insisted that
if the alternating current were to be used at all in
New York, its maximum pressure must be reduced
to two hundred volts. Some of his more radical
disciples went so far as to argue that to take the ob-
noxious wires out of the upper air and run them

152 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

through subways would only multiply the perils
with which they menaced life and property.

All this is, of course, so old a story now that we
can afford to laugh over it without wasting further
space on a rehearsal of details. One incident of the
fight upon the alternating current, however, to which
I have made but a casual allusion before, was too
theatrical in character to be passed thus summarily.
I refer to the adoption by the State of New York of
what is commonly styled electrocution.

The sensibilities of all humane people had been
shocked so often by ill-managed hangings, that on
Governor Hill's recommendation the Legislature of
1886 created by statute a commission composed of
three citizens conspicuous for their intelligence,
philanthropy, and high character, to consider the
question of a change in the method of executing the
death penalty. These gentlemen spent more than
a year on their inquiry, and then Elbridge T. Gerry,
their chairman, presented a report in favor of using
the alternating electric current, and an act to that
effect was passed ; but coupled with the main pro-
vision were several others regarding the mode of
confinement of the condemned person, his privileges
in the death-ward, the discretionary hour of the
execution, the functionaries who must witness it,
and the silence which must be maintained by the
press as to everything except the bare fact that such
an event had occurred.

At once arose a chorus of belated protests from
persons who had ignored their opportunity to present
their objections to the Commission or the Legislature.

THE STRUGGLE IN NEW YORK 153

Some criminal lawyers denounced the proposed
punishment as " cruel" and " unusual" within the
intent of the Constitutional prohibition ; a physician
here and there voiced his judgment that the electric
current shot through a human being would torture
him fearfully before killing, and that at best its mor-
tal effectiveness was open to question ; scores of
sentimentalists censured the preliminary precau-
tions and the provisions as to witnesses ; and most
of the newspapers which had been accustomed to
print long and elaborate accounts of hangings fell
afoul of the restrictions on publicity. This pro-
miscuous agitation prepared the popular mind for
what was coming next — the announcement that
Harold P. Brown had obtained a contract for fur-
nishing the apparatus needed for disposing of the
first malefactor doomed to suffer death under the
new law. He was one William Kemmler, an ignorant
and besotted creature, more brute than man, who,
in a fit of anger, had hacked a dissolute woman to
death with an ax. All the circumstances of the
murder were so revolting that whatever was asso-
ciated with it in any way seemed to suffer a taint
from the contact, not excepting the instrument of
death with which society proposed to avenge the
crime. And then the further news came out that
Mr. Brown had equipped not only the Auburn State
prison, where Kemmler had been condemned to die,
but Sing Sing and Clinton as well, with complete
Westinghouse outfits, one of which, he said, had
"already a record as a man-killer"; and that, ap-
parently in order to escape the danger of a refusal

154 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

if he tried to make his purchase direct, he had bought
his apparatus of middlemen. The indignation of
Westinghouse passed all bounds, but he kept its
outward expression under strong control, and, be-
yond a fresh refutation of the slurs cast at his system
by falsehoods or half-truths, held his peace for a
time to await events.

Immediately after his sentence, Kemmler's attor-
neys began a series of appeals which for industry
and ingenuity have never been surpassed in their
way. The challenge to the constitutionality of the
new law was threshed out so completely that not a
shred of doubt remained ; a canvass of the scientific
question also was carried as far as the endurance of
the courts could be stretched, and included a hearing
before a referee, at which Edison and Brown were
the star witnesses called to prove the deadliness of
the alternating current. The battle for Kemmler's
rescue even invaded the Legislature, where Newton
M. Curtis, for half a lifetime a propagandist against
judicial homicide, succeeded in pushing through the
Assembly a bill to abolish capital punishment al-
together in New York, but, the Senate refusing
compliance, his efforts came to naught.

As Kemmler was penniless, and the customary
fees of lawyers like William Bourke Cockran and
Roger M. Sherman were far from trifling, a suspicion
gained place in the public mind for a season that
Westinghouse stood with his purse behind these
strenuous attempts to stay the hand of justice, in
the hope of saving the offspring of his faith and cour-
age from being " turned to hangman's uses." There

THE STRUGGLE IN NEW YORK 155

was never a shadow of evidence forthcoming, how-
ever, to justify such an inference ; and when West-
inghouse himself condescended to deny the rumor,
that ended the matter. Every defensive resource,
State or Federal, having been exhausted, sentence
was pronounced for the third and last time, and on
August 6, 1890, Kemmler was put to death in the
electric chair.

In his official report on the execution, Doctor
Carlos F. MacDonald, the supervising physician,
made the unqualified assertion that, in comparison
with hanging, " electricity is infinitely preferable,
both as regards the suddenness with which death is
effected, and the expedition with which all the pre-
liminary details may be arranged. ... In other
words, it is the surest, quickest, and least painful
method that has yet been devised." Such a verdict
from such a source lulled the tumult except among a
few representatives of the yellow press ; and, as soon
as the sensational features of the case lost their
popular appeal, nearly everybody passed from con-
sidering arguments against tolerating the employ-
ment of the alternating current for public utilities,
to searching for new lines of industrial production
or social convenience to which it could be applied.

CHAPTER XII
ORIGIN OF THE " STOPPER" LAMP

THE reader can hardly have failed to discover that
the fertility of mind and the self-confidence which
distinguished George Westinghouse were combined
with a charm of personality that attracted men to
him on short acquaintance, and a masterful quality
to which they responded almost unconsciously with
compliance. These traits made him not only the
titular head of any enterprise he started, but sub-
stantially a dictator in its management. As nearly
everything industrial to which he laid his hand in-
volved a large initial outlay, he made a practice of
organizing corporations in which, while the stock-
holders furnished the necessary funds for launching
them and elected their boards of directors, he was
before long the supreme figure. This system had
its marked advantages as far as simplicity and ease
of administration were concerned ; it had some
equally marked drawbacks. Human nature is so
constituted that the man who has succeeded in all
his first endeavors is liable to acquire the notion
that he is invincible, and to be led into ventures
beyond his strength.

Such was the case with Westinghouse. By the
spring of 1890 he was in control of concerns which

ORIGIN OF THE "STOPPER" LAMP 157

were manufacturing air brakes and switch and signal
apparatus for steam railroads ; making pioneer ex-
periments with electric railways for local traffic ;
furnishing natural gas to a large district tributary
to Pittsburgh ; running small industrial plants that
could utilize the gas effectively; turning out every
kind of mechanism for the generation and distribu-
tion of the alternating electric current ; and furnish-
ing electric illumination to communities in all the
American States and Territories and in various other
parts of both hemispheres, even the Chinese city of
Canton having contracted for an equipment. In
four years the total annual sales of the appliances
produced by his Electric Company had grown from
one hundred and fifty thousand to four million dollars.
Although the unwholesome trade situation which
was developing in the country at large had not yet
reached its crucial stage, it was already threatening
enough to cause uneasiness in many minds. In the
midst of a violent agitation of the silver question in
the United States, news suddenly came from England
of the collapse of the great banking house of the
Baring Brothers, carrying down a bevy of lesser
concerns and spreading everywhere a fear of worse
things still to come. Mr. Westinghouse, who had
run up to Lenox, Massachusetts, to attend to a real
estate purchase there, was summoned back to Pitts-
burgh by telegraph. He realized at once that the
Electric Company was facing a crisis. His first act
was to call together the directors and lay before them
a scheme of relief which involved, as a preliminary
feature, the change of the title of their corporation

158 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

to the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing
Company, and the doubling of its capital stock.
The old shareholders were given the privilege of sub-
scribing to the stock at a price twenty per cent below
par, but general commercial conditions were so
depressing that the response fell far short of what
he had hoped. He thereupon invited the leading
bankers of Pittsburgh, who had profited by the busi-
ness brought them through the industries he had
built up in the city or had attracted thither from
the outside, to meet him for an informal talk. A
good many came ; but several on whom he had most
surely counted failed him — one going so far as to
confess to a friend that he dared not expose himself
to the persuasive influence of Westinghouse face to
face, for fear of yielding to impulse and granting a
loan which he would afterward regret.

The meeting opened with a brief review by West-
inghouse of his connection with local institutions,
laying special stress on the growth of his Electric
Company, which, in spite of its temporary embar-
rassment, was destined for a career of unparalleled
prosperity. Then he set the sum he must have at
once at a half-million dollars, offering collateral se-
curity for such an accommodation, including a mort-
gage on his estate at Homewood, which had largely
increased in value since its purchase nearly twenty
years before. So favorable an impression did he
create that the bankers appointed a committee to
go over the whole subject and report at an adjourned
meeting. The report was favorable, and in a short
time the half-million desired was oversubscribed.

ORIGIN OF THE " STOPPER" LAMP 159

But just at this point one of the subscribers suggested
that, if they were going to pull the company out of
its trouble, they ought to have something to say
about its conduct thenceforward till it had discharged
its debt to them. "Mr. Westinghouse wastes so
much on experimentation, and pays so liberally for
whatever he wishes in the way of service and patent
rights," said the speaker, " that we are taking a pretty
large risk if we give him a free hand with the fund he
has asked us to raise. We ought at least to know
what he is doing with our money."
• This proposal checked the rising tide, and a second
committee was appointed to devise a form of con-
tract which would bind Westinghouse to share with
the bankers his knowledge, and to some degree his
direction, of his Company's affairs. A new program
was drawn up, making the loan contingent upon the
bankers' right to name the general manager, and
Westinghouse was invited in and asked whether it
was satisfactory. With great positiveness, but with-
out any show of resentment, he immediately an-
swered that the concession demanded was too vital
for him to consider, and candidly stated his reasons.
The bankers expressed their willingness to make a
few modifications of their plan, but, as none of these
covered his objections, there was some further dis-
cussion, and it seemed probable that, if the meeting
continued much longer, he would be able to get the
money on his own terms ; for he clung so firmly to
the view that, after all he had done for Pittsburgh,
it was only fair that Pittsburgh should do him a
good turn when he needed it, as to put compromise

160 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

out of the question. After a little more futile talk,
he announced that he must have a final answer then
and there. The bankers gave him one — a flat re-
fusal. Realizing what this meant to him, they
waited almost breathlessly to note its effect. To
their astonishment, instead of being staggered, he
rose with a smile, remarking; "Well, thank God
I know the worst at last!" And waiting only long
enough to tell them a humorous story in illustration
of the unburdening of his mind, he bade them good
day and walked out of the room.

That night he took train for New York, and in the
morning strode into the banking district there,
where his personal acquaintance was limited, and the
affairs of the Electric and Manufacturing Company
were practically unknown. But every one knew
George Westinghouse by reputation, and the fame of
his inventions, large as it had become, was not wider
than the fame of his resourcefulness and integrity
in business.

The results of this errand to the great financial
center took several months to mature, but they were
momentous, and turned what had seemed a deadly
misfortune into an opening for a new and better
future. The banking house of August Belmont and
Company took the lead in forming a financial syndi-
cate so strong as to command universal confidence.
Two electric lighting companies — the United States
and the Consolidated -- which had for some time
been controlled by the Westinghouse interests under
lease, were absorbed into the combination, and their
stockholders allowed to exchange their present hold-

ORIGIN OF THE "STOPPER" LAMP 161

ings for the new shares of the Westinghouse Electric
and Manufacturing Company, preferred and com-
mon in certain proportions, while the stockholders
of the dominating corporation were asked to sur-
render forty per cent of their old stock and take
second preference shares in the reorganized company
in lieu of the remainder. The net result was the
reduction of a total outstanding liability of more than
ten million dollars, with annual interest charges ex-
ceeding one hundred eighty thousand dollars, to
less than nine million dollars, all in stock — thanks
to a voluntary sacrifice on the part of the stockholders
and the willingness of the bankers and creditors con-
cerned to take preferred shares in an enterprise of which
the success must depend almost wholly on one man.

This triumph, gratifying as it was, did not stir the
sensibilities of Westinghouse half so deeply as the
conduct of the employees of his original Electric
Company, who, as soon as they learned of the trouble
he was in, had come to him with the proposal to
work for half pay till he could get upon his feet again.
Another incident which had warmed his heart was
a visit from T. A. Gillespie, the contractor who drilled
his first gas well and had done a good deal of work for
him in the past, and whose latest bills were still un-
paid. Mr. Gillespie called not only to say that these
obligations might be indefinitely postponed, but to
offer a loan of thousands of dollars that very day if
it would help any. Westinghouse declined all such
tenders, but they were not the less pleasing to him
as evidence of the esteem in which he was held by
men who knew him best on his human side.

162 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

It seemed at that period as if every aspiring in-
ventor who hit upon, or dreamed of, a new idea in
electric lamps, made it his first business to hunt up
Westinghouse as a possible customer. A favorite
object of the vagaries of such persons was the fila-
ment to be used for incandescent lighting, since a
poor one was liable to break with the slightest jar,
and even one otherv/ise good might not endure sub-
jection to the current for any length of time. One
lamp, the patent rights for which were acquired
through the purchase of the Sawyer-Man Company,
formed the basis of expensive lawsuits in the United
States courts, culminating in the defeat of Westing-
house, the sole important result of the litigation
being to demonstrate which of the features in con-
troversy were already public property. His ad-
versaries in this fight were the Edison interests which
later formed the nucleus of the General Electric
Company ; and, as they had given him so much
trouble in New York, it is not unreasonable to
suppose that there may have been a bit of the
tit-for-tat spirit animating his entrance upon a
contest with them in another and more broadly
conspicuous field.

The Columbian Exposition, a World's Fair de-
signed to celebrate the four-hundredth anniversary
of the discovery of America, was announced to be
held in Chicago in 1893, the postponement of a year
from the appropriate date being deemed advisable
because of the pendency of a Presidential campaign.
Sealed proposals had been invited for lighting the
fair grounds by electricity, and all the lighting com-

ORIGIN OF THE "STOPPER" LAMP 163

panics realized that the job would afford exceptional
advertising opportunities to the contractor whose
work should be projected for six months against so
artistic a background of architecture, landscape
gardening, and water effects. It was the greatest
single undertaking in its line that had ever been at-
tempted in this country ; by common consent there
were only two concerns competent to handle it, the
General Electric Company and the Westinghouse
Electric and Manufacturing Company ; and it was
generally understood that "the latter was not among
the bidders.

When the bids were opened in April, 1892, it was
found that the several companies of the General
Electric group had put in figures ranging from $13.98
to $18.51 per light. But there was also another
bidder whom nobody would have suspected of the
temerity to compete with these powerful interests.
He was Charles F. Locksteadt, president of the South
Side Machine and Metal Works of Chicago, and his
offer was $5.49 per light. The big concerns stood
aghast. Who was this intruder? Could any one
of consequence vouch for his responsibility? Who
would manufacture the apparatus for him ?

Mr. Locksteadt approached Mr. Westinghouse,
hoping to interest him in the situation, and in due
course the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing
Company advised the officials of the Columbian
Exposition that it would undertake to carry out the
Locksteadt bid. After considerable negotiation it
was agreed that new bids be called for. On opening
these a bid from the Westinghouse interests of $5.25

164 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

per light was found the lowest on the list, and West-
inghouse was awarded the contract.

It was, in the judgment of not a few of his friends
familiar with the circumstances, a reckless dive in
the dark ; and in strict truth it was a profitless ven-
ture if the only question to be taken into account
were its immediate return in dollars and cents. But
the inventor's imagination had leaped far enough
ahead for him to realize that this was the opportu-
nity of a lifetime for introducing his products to the
notice of the whole world, and, as usual, what he paid
for such an advantage was a secondary consideration.

After the contract had been signed and sealed, he
was faced with a fresh puzzle. He could manufacture
all the rest of the equipment needed, but where was
he to look for his lamps ? The Edison combination,
of course, would not sell him any, and they had the
patent rights on the only all-glass-globe incandescent
lamp in existence. Though the validity of these
rights was then a subject of litigation in the federal
courts, the decision of the final appeal was probably
close at hand, with all the probabilities favoring
affirmation. Plainly, the only thing the contractor
could do was to devise some new kind of globe or
bulb, which, even if not so good as the Edison globe,
would suffice for his present purpose.

What his ingenuity presently evolved was the
"stopper" lamp — so called because, instead of the
one-piece bulb invented by Edison, it was made in
two pieces, the one that contained the wire fitting
into the mouth of the bulb-shaped one as a cork fits
into the mouth of a bottle. Of course, with only

ORIGIN OF THE "STOPPER" LAMP 165

such a plug to depend upon, it might prove impossible
to exclude the air for long. If so, it would be neces-
sary to renew the bulbs frequently, and this would
have to be done by hand at a heavy aggregate cost.
But such difficulties were negligible by comparison
with the great end to be gained, and the inventor
plunged into his task with zeal. He found that he
could use soft iron where the Edison lamp used
platinum, and in other ways reduce largely the cost
of his bulbs. Substantially all the mechanism used
in making the new lamps had to be specially designed,
and he took a short cut by setting up a glass factory
in Allegheny, whither he used to go daily while at
home, to instruct the operatives in running the
grinding machines so as to make the stoppers as
nearly as possible a perfect fit.

The conclusive decision in the all-glass-globe lamp
patent suit was in favor of Edison as expected. It
was handed down on December 15, 1892, but, thanks
to the new invention, caused no disturbance in the
plans of the Westinghouse Electric and Manufac-
turing Company for carrying out the World's Fair
contract. An incident did occur, however, which
illustrates the dramatic guise the merest chance
may assume.

George Westinghouse was in New York City for
the Christmas season, and on the afternoon of the
twenty-third of December happened to take an up-
bound elevated train in company with his friend and
legal adviser Charles A. Terry. In their car they
encountered Grosvenor P. Lowrey, chief counsel
for the Edison Electric Light Company in patent

166 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

matters, and took seats next to him. During the con-
versation that ensued, Mr. Lowrey dropped a casual
remark which indicated that Frederick P. Fish,
another of the Edison lawyers, was that day in Pitts-
burgh. Immediately Westinghouse began to pay
close attention to what the speaker was saying,
and made two or three half-questioning comments,
which in turn appeared to cause Mr. Lowrey some
embarrassment, as if it had suddenly struck him that
perhaps he had been more communicative than was
wise. At Fourteenth Street, Westinghouse rose,
quietly motioned to Terry to do likewise, and the
two excused themselves to Lowrey and quitted the
train.

Hardly were they alone together on the platform
when Westinghouse plumped at Terry the question :
"What is Fish doing in Pittsburgh?"

Terry was unable, of course, to offer more than a
guess in response. Both recalled the fact that some
of their people had met Fish in New York the day
before, and were sure that he uttered no hint of an
intended visit to Pittsburgh.

" I can't conceive what would call him there, " said
Westinghouse, "except to make some new trouble
for us. We shall have to act quickly to head it off,
whatever it is. I wish you'd hunt up Curtis and
Kerr at once and let them get to work." Thomas B.
Kerr and Leonard E. Curtis had been his counsel
throughout his lamp litigation.

Finding that Curtis had gone to his home in
Englewood for the night, Terry sought him there
and related the story of the meeting on the train and

ORIGIN OF THE "STOPPER" LAMP 167

what had developed from it. Instantly Curtis put
himself in touch by wire with George H. Christy, a
professional colleague in Pittsburgh, warning him
to look out for whatever was in the wind.

The next morning when Mr. Fish entered the
United States Circuit Court Room in Pittsburgh,
where Judge Acheson was to hold chambers, he was
surprised to find Christy seated within the bar.
After a brief and rather tense interval of silence, he
turned to Christy with the inquiry :

"Have you a case on this morning?"

"Nothing on the calendar," answered Christy
blandly ; "but I thought I might possibly have some-
thing to attend to, so I was just sitting around to
await events."

The two lawyers looked each other over with a
poor affectation of indifference. Christy was still
not quite sure what the other lawyer was there for,
though he had his suspicions ; while the latter's eyes
wandered warily toward a package of papers in
Christy's hands, of which he obviously did not like
the appearance. Neither had long to wait for larger
knowledge. Judge Acheson, immediately after the
formal opening of the court, called up a few held-over
items of business, and in a moment the secret was
out. The Edison Company's counsel had, it ap-
peared, on the day before, applied for a restraining
order to prevent the Westinghouse Electric and
Manufacturing Company from selling, or otherwise
disposing of, its electric lamps, charging it with bad
faith in resorting to a technical subterfuge to evade
the injunction against the Sawyer-Man lamp. He

i68 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

had hoped to obtain such a restraining order on his
presentation of the case ; the Judge had expressed
a reluctance to issue the order till the other side could
be heard, but had yielded to counsel's urgency so far
as to consent to take the matter under consideration
over night. As a result of Christy's presentation of
the facts in the case, the matter was laid over till
after Christmas, when the accused company not only
satisfied the Court that it was guiltless of any at-
tempt at evasion, but followed up its advantage by
producing a set of blue prints to show the details of
the construction and operation of the stopper-lamp,
which made it plain that this constituted no infringe-
ment of the Edison lamp patents. Although more or
less harassing warfare was kept up afterward, this
unexpected proceeding in court so far cleared the way
for Westinghouse that he was able to proceed with
the manufacture of his lamps and carry out his great
undertaking at Chicago.

As I have suggested, the whole dramatic incident
developed from mere chance. Had not Westing-
house and Terry taken the car they did that after-
noon, they would not have met Lowrey. Had not
Lowrey felt confident that Fish had succeeded in his
plan that morning, he would have been too cautious
to let drop the remark which caught Westinghouse's.
special attention. Above all, but for the wizard-like
keenness of Westinghouse, this remark might have
passed as casually as the rest of the conversation.
Repeated applications for injunctions, even though
ultimately unsuccessful, would have hampered and
delayed his work on the Fair grounds, and rendered

ORIGIN OF THE "STOPPER" LAMP 169

impossible the first illumination on the date fixed in
the contract. This would have damaged the credit
of his company, and it had been a matter of pride
with him to prove to the world that since its re-
organization it was once more firmly on its feet.

When the World's Fair opened on the 1st of May,
1893, the Westinghouse lighting plant was one of the
few very large installations that was complete and
in place. It included twelve dynamos ten feet high
and weighing about seventy-five tons apiece, con-
structed on the Tesla multiphase system. Popular
interest was divided between these giant machines,
the largest of their kind up to that time, and the
switchboard. The latter was made of one thousand
square feet of marble and divided into three sections,
reached by galleries with spiral iron stairways. It
operated forty circuits, so articulated that, if a break
occurred in any circuit, another could be instantly
substituted to do its w^ork. The switchboard con-
trolled two hundred and fifty thousand incandescent
lamps of sixteen candle power, only one hundred
and eighty thousand of which were to be used at one
time, the remaining seventy thousand being a reserve
against emergencies. What astonished visitors most,
perhaps, was to see this elaborate mechanism handled
by one man, who was constantly in touch, by tele-
phone or messenger, with every part of the grounds,
and responded to requests of all sorts by the mere
turning of a switch.

The Fair lasted six months. It was illuminated
every night, and with a success which received an
extraordinary tribute. The currency panic of 1893

170 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

had swept over the country and combined with a
number of other adverse conditions to reduce re-
ceipts; but the management, though badly put to
it at times to make both ends meet, decided that,
whoever else might have to wait, there was one
creditor whose bills they must promptly meet, since
by his enterprise and courage he had saved them a
round million dollars : that one was George Westing-
house. A special arrangement was therefore made,
whereby he was to be paid a certain sum weekly from
the current receipts. When the panic was passing
through its most acute stage, and the banks were
refusing to cash checks because they had nothing to
cash them with, the treasury of the Fair handed over
to the local representative of. the Westinghouse
Electric and Manufacturing Company large quan-
tities of dollars and half-dollars and quarters, which
were shipped directly to Pittsburgh, and used to pay
off the workmen in the shops at a time when cur-
rency was commanding five per cent premium.

CHAPTER XIII
FROM NIAGARA TO THE NAVY

GREAT as the World's Fair undertaking was,
George Westinghouse was soon to be called to lend
a hand at one far greater — the harnessing of
Niagara's waters for the industrial uses of mankind ;
and the demonstration he made at Chicago may have
played no small part in the creation of this oppor-
tunity.

From their discovery by white explorers early in
the sixteenth century, the falls of Niagara had com-
monly been regarded as a scenic wonder rather than
as a potential agent of utility. Now and then, as
the era of mechanical invention advanced, would
arise a prophet venturesome enough to talk about a
day when this and other great cataracts would be
made to turn mill wheels and thus help feed the
world ; but such prognostications rarely inspired
any one to attempt their fulfillment ; and although
between 1847 and 1861 sundry owners of land bor-
dering on the Niagara River diverted water for hy-
draulic power purposes on a considerable scale, their
experiments proved financially unsuccessful, and
little more thought was spent on the subject for a
number of years. Meanwhile the neighborhood of
the falls had suffered so at the hands of vandals that

172 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

the State government had interfered for the protec-
tion of its natural beauties by condemning enough
private property to make them the center of a public
reservation.

In 1886 Thomas Evershed of Rochester, a division
engineer on the Erie Canal, prepared plans for a
tunnel about a mile and a half long, running under-
neath the town of Niagara Falls and parallel to the
river above the falls. Near the upper end of the
tunnel, canals or shafts were to take water from the
river and carry it to pits, in which, at a depth of
150 feet, were to be placed turbine wheels for supply-
ing power. Having served the purpose of turning
the wheels, the water would pass into the tunnel,
and be carried down to its mouth a short distance
below the falls. Factories were to be built within
easy reach of the power. And all this would be
possible without impairing the picturesqueness of
the landscape.

Evershed's diagrams and figures attracted much
notice in the vicinage, where several well-to-do resi-
dents undertook to raise the sum needed to construct
the canals, pits, and tunnel, and install the wheels
and other machinery. As a preliminary, they or-
ganized the Niagara Falls Power Company and ob-
tained a charter from the State legislature. But
the millions required were not readily obtainable in
Western New York, and the project had begun to
droop when it occurred to William Rankine, a young
lawyer, to lay his documents and sketches before
Francis Lynde Stetson of New York City, a pro-
fessional friend with a large clientele among men of

FROM NIAGARA TO THE NAVY 173

wealth. Before their interview was over, Stetson
was so impressed that he took the papers and agreed
to see what he could do.

In his turn, he opened negotiations with several
clients of large means like Darius O. Mills, J. Pierpont
Morgan, Edward D. Adams, and Hamilton McK.
Twombley. All recognized it as a serious enterprise,
and attended with many uncertainties, so far ahead
was it of anything of the kind that had been at-
tempted, but they concluded to give it their support.
As it was important that whatever favorable results
might be obtained should accrue primarily to the
projectors, an eligible tract of land adjacent to the
river was purchased and laid out for factory sites and
a model village ; and the Cataract Construction
Company was organized to finance and execute the
plans finally decided upon.

These plans, it was assumed, would in the main be
Evershed's ; but experts in various parts of the world
were to be called upon to go over them item by item
and advise the Company what modifications, if any,
were desirable. Up to that point the broad question
was still open, whether the utilization of Niagara
power could best be accomplished by hydraulic,
pneumatic, or electric agencies. In June, 1890,
Mr. Adams, who, with his engineering adviser,
Doctor Coleman Sellers of Philadelphia, had been
passing a good deal of time in London discussing the
general subject with English and foreign technolo-
gists, organized the so-called International Niagara
Commission, with power to award twenty-two
thousand dollars in prizes for the most useful ideas.

174 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

The commission, which had for its chairman Sir
William Thomson, later raised to the peerage as
Lord Kelvin, for its secretary Professor William Caw-
thorne Unwin, Dean of the Central Institute of
Guilds of the City of London, and in its membership
men of such eminence as Doctor Sellers, Lieutenant
Colonel Theodore Turretini of Geneva, and Professor
E. Mascart of the College of France, invited the
British Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing
Company and sundry other large concerns to submit
competitive plans, the principal prize offered being
three thousand dollars. Lewis B. Stillwell of the
American company, who chanced to be in London
at the time, believed that the polyphase alternating
current system offered the most practical key to the
situation, and was anxious to get permission to put
in a bid for the British company, but Westinghouse
refused, explaining later that the prize offered was
an entirely inadequate sum to pay for one hundred
thousand dollars' worth of advice, and adding :
"When the Niagara people are ready to do business,
we shall make them a proposal."

The Electric and Manufacturing Company had
been sadly hampered in its commercial development
of the polyphase system during 1890 and 1891 by the
financial difficulties with which it had to contend,
but in 1892 it constructed two one-hundred-fifty-
horse-power rotary converters, and Westinghouse
invited the Cataract Construction Company to send
its engineers to Pittsburgh to inspect and test these
machines. Doctor Sellers and Professor Henry A.
Rowland responded, and George Forbes, one of the

FROM NIAGARA TO THE NAVY 175

foremost electricians of England, came at another
time. All three were much impressed -- especially
Forbes, who more than a year before had put himself
on record, in connection with the submission of a
project covering the engineering work on the new
enterprise, in favor of using the alternating current.
But even so eminent an authority was unable to
bring the rest of the Construction Company's ad-
visers to his view, and at the outset all voted to con-
demn and reject the alternating system, except
Forbes himself and an electrician from Buda-Pesth.
Forbes never wavered for a moment, and finally
turned the tide of preference by proving the pro-
hibitive cost of a continuous current installation.
Of the whole group of experts consulted, Lord Kelvin
was the only one who still held out in opposition.
Some time afterward he cabled the Construction
Company, reasserting his loyalty to his original judg-
ment, but admitting that the company " could cer-
tainly succeed with the alternating current. " And
still later, when practical trials had proved his ap-
prehensions vain, he candidly confessed that the
alternating current " alone solves the problem well
and economically."

On October 24, 1893, as the result of a spirited
competition with the General Electric Company, the
Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company
was awarded a contract for three mammoth gen-
erators. Westinghouse took a very active part per-
sonally in the direction of the work at Pittsburgh,
and in less than eighteen months the first five-thou-
sand-horse-power turbo-alternator unit operated by

1 76 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

hydraulic power was in place and in working order,
with a capacity which proved capable of doing even
more than the contract called for, yielding five
thousand, one hundred thirty-five horse power — •
nearly three per cent above the demand.

Meanwhile, in the access of enthusiasm which fol-
lowed the assurance that something had at last been
begun toward utilizing power from the Niagara River,
all central New York gave itself up for a time to a
revel in electric promotion. Companies were or-
ganized on every side to buy and sell locally the
power which was to be transmitted from the falls,
and plans were drawn for the storage stations which
were to serve as media in the scheme. A message
of Governor Flower to the legislature had advocated,
in the interest of economical transportation, the
substitution of electricity for draft mules as a motive
power on the Erie Canal, and a law had been passed
appropriating ten thousand dollars for experimenta-
tion in this field. The State Superintendent of Public
Works negotiated with Westinghouse for an equip-
ment for a first test, to cost five thousand dollars if
necessary, the State and the inventor dividing the
expense equally between them. Trolley wires were
strung along the banks, and, as the Niagara project
was still all on paper, power for the test was obtained
from the Rochester street railway company.

On May 18, 1893, an old canal boat, fitted with
apparatus like that on a trolley car, was started for
a demonstrative trip of one mile. It passed through
locks and around curves, making an average rate of
about five miles an hour, or within one mile of the

FROM NIAGARA TO THE NAVY 177

lawful speed limit on canals. The Governor, several
other State officers, and prominent citizens, as well
as Westinghouse and some of his leading subordi-
nates, were passengers, and nearly all pronounced
the case for electric propulsion well proved. But
there remained a few doubters who protested that,
after a boat had been drawn by trolley from Buffalo
to the Hudson River, it must still be towed down
to New York. This criticism having been duly
threshed out, the thoughts of every one were diverted
from trolley propulsion to individual motors, and
gradually, after a period of fruitless experiments,
interest in the canal project died of inanition. The
Niagara enterprise prospered, however, and for years
thereafter the Power Company was a frequent cus-
tomer of the Westinghouse Electric and Manu-
facturing Company, which installed unit after unit
until ten huge generators were in place, with an
aggregate capacity of fifty-five thousand horse power.
Of what has grown out of these beginnings, a few
figures will give us a suggestion. Today there are
power houses on the American and Canadian sides
having a combined capacity already installed of
over two hundred thousand, with additional plants
under construction. By means of transformers situ-
ated near the power houses, and the use of overhead
and subway lines according to their respective
adaptation, electricity is distributed for lighting,
power, and heating purposes over nearly the entire
western and middle parts of New York State, and
as far east as Syracuse. Development has not yet
ceased, and although restricted to some degree by

178 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

legislation, no one would venture now to define the
lengths to which it may go before it ceases. The city
of Niagara Falls, which contained about ten thousand
population when ground was first broken for the
mammoth power enterprise, has now thirty-five
thousand, and in the same interval its real estate
has increased in assessed valuation from seven mil-
lion to thirty-two million dollars. Most of this
advance can reasonably be attributed to the influence,
direct and indirect, of the industrial awakening due
to the Niagara power enterprise. In what measure
the neighboring communities affected have profited
likewise is less readily determined, as they have had
other resources than the great waterfall to draw upon.
As an illustration of the versatility of Westing-
house's mind, it is worth noting that, in the midst
of all the hubbub attendant upon the reorganization
of his Electric company, the crisis in the lamp con-
troversy, the lighting of the World's Fair, and the
installations at Niagara, he never became so absorbed
in any of these concerns as to let his interest slacken
in others. His experience in building up a natural
gas industry in Pittsburgh had moved him to study
the possibilities of the production of economical
power by the use of a gas engine, since its efficiency
as a prime mover when using natural gas was far
superior to that of the best steam engines of that
period. Even with a manufactured fuel gas, con-
taining less heat than natural gas, there was a decided
advantage in respect to the cost of fuel when used in
a gas engine. But gas engines had not then been
designed of sufficient size to meet the requirements

FROM NIAGARA TO THE NAVY 179

for large powers necessary for their advantageous
use, particularly for the production of electricity,
and their speed regulation was not sufficiently ac-
curate to produce the uniform rotary motion neces-
sary for the production of electric current. In his
usual energetic and comprehensive manner, he de-
signed and successfully built gas engines of more than
three hundred horse power with a system of regulation
that furnished a uniform rotative speed, thus solving
the problem of the successful production of electric
current by gas-engine power. The gas-engine de-
velopment ultimately resulted in the manufacture,
by the Westinghouse Machine Company, of engines
of more than five thousand horse power that found
their principal uses in blast furnaces and rolling mills.

Westinghouse had given a great deal of attention
to the subject of the manufacture of fuel gas from
coal, and in connection with the gas-engine develop-
ment he designed and built experimentally many
forms of gas producers, seeking to develop a type
that would make gas from soft coal by a process
which avoided the many difficulties arising from the
by-products and impurities contained in the coal.
As the result of years of effort, he finally evolved a
form that met demands in a very practical way. In
his larger effort, however, to discover a process for
manufacturing gas at a cost and of a quality that
could be profitably sold and distributed in competi-
tion with coal for heating and power purposes, he
was not successful.

A notion Westinghouse kept in mind in perfecting
the gas engine was that it would one day supplant

1 8o GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

the steam engine because of its great fuel economy,
comparative freedom from offensive qualities, and
the ease with which, in connection with apparatus
for generating and conveying an electric current,
the engine and producer could be placed wherever
coal could most conveniently be received and stored.
He thought that by setting up generating stations,
with gas engines, at intervals of ten or twenty miles,
long railroads could be run by electricity ; and an
electric locomotive capable of hauling twenty or
thirty cars could thus be operated by one man, with
a current simultaneously used for lighting tracks,
running machinery and shops, pumping water,
handling freight at stations, lighting and heating
trains, and the like.

The subject of electrifying street railroads, also,
strongly stirred his interest at this juncture. The
popular demand for rapid transit was loud in every
large city. Cable lines had fallen into disfavor ;
overhead trolleys were unsightly, and no satisfactory
underground system had yet been reduced to what
seemed reasonable bounds of cost. But an unper-
fected invention had been brought to his notice
which he spent a good deal of time and thought in
developing. It was commonly known as the "button
system", because its visible factors were the button-
like heads of iron pins which appeared in pairs at
seven-foot intervals between the tracks, raised a
trifle above the surface of the roadway. Every pair
were connected with electrical conductors, leading to
electro-magnetic switches alongside of the track,
which in their turn were connected with a main

FROM NIAGARA TO THE NAVY 181

electric line laid in a conduit just beneath the pave-^
ment and fed from a power station like a trolley.
Under every car were carried two iron bars, projecting
from its bottom like the prongs of a tuning fork ;
and only when these bars were in contact with two
corresponding buttons was the circuit completed
that propelled the car. At all other times the buttons
were inert and harmless. The button system had
the advantage of the underground trolley now so
widely used, that it required no greater depth of
excavation than the ties.

While he was studying this device, the directors
of the Manhattan Elevated Railway system began
discussing the question of changing its motive power
from steam to electricity, and a majority inclined
strongly to such a change if they could have any
assurance of what would be the wisest plan of elec-
trification to adopt. Westinghouse was consulted
by Russell Sage, but, firmly as he believed that elec-
trification of all railways was coming in due season,
he was loath to advise an early change. Just what
he had in mind in discouraging immediate action
did not at once appear, though later he brought out
his idea of using gas engines for running the gener-
ators. The matter was postponed as he suggested ;
a few years afterward it was taken up with him again,
he having in the interval received a contract for
equipping an underground trolley for the Third
Avenue surface railway, which had been run by cable.
When the Manhattan directors had finally decided
what they wanted, they called upon him to submit
plans for the heavy generating machinery for a new

1 32 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

power house, and for the apparatus for substations.
Other large manufacturers and contractors were in-
vited to do the same ; but the Westinghouse plans,
after a searching analysis by a board of engineering
experts, were accepted as the best offered, and won
the award of a contract mounting well up into the
millions, and calling among other things for eight
three-phase alternating generators of six thousand
six hundred fifty horse-power capacity apiece —
the largest ever constructed till then. The alter-
nating current was to be conveyed from the main
power house to the substations, and there reduced
by step-down converters to a direct current of five
hundred volts for feeding to a third rail.

The third rail never found an enthusiastic cham-
pion in Westinghouse. Though appreciating its
great possibilities as a means of propelling trains, he
was always mindful of its menace to human life.
Since it was going to be used in any event, he sug-
gested its division into sections, with provisions for
the automatic supply of the requisite current to
these in turn, as the train moved. Even with such
precautions he regarded the rail as only a dangerous
makeshift, and insisted that what the elevated roads
ought to have done was to use the overhead trolley
instead — not the fragile and disfiguring construction
too commonly met with, but a substantially built
line, of inoffensive appearance. The managers of
the Manhattan railway were not ready to credit his
apprehensions. Time has pretty well demonstrated
that this was one of the rare instances where his
matured judgment in the electrical manufacturing

FROM NIAGARA TO THE NAVY 183

field was at fault ; and to this day the third rail con-
tinues the Manhattan's sole dependence for motive
power.

In spite of activities such as these, Westinghouse
still found time to examine the merits of a type of
steam turbine developed by the Honorable Charles
Algernon Parsons of London, and ultimately obtained
authority to manufacture under the Parsons patents
in the United States. It will be recalled that the
first invention patented by Westinghouse was a
rotary engine, and throughout his life, until the last
ten or twelve years, he devoted much time and
thought as well as large sums of money to an effort
to produce an engine of the rotary type that would
meet his ideals with respect to efficiency, simplicity,
and cheap production. His efforts did not cease
until he became interested in the steam turbine, in
which he recognized a form of rotary steam engine
that solved his problem of so many years.

In its earlier stages, the Parsons turbine had been
used to drive electric generators for the purpose of
lighting ships, and, about the time that Westinghouse
procured the foreign rights, Parsons had fitted a
vessel called the Turbinia with one of his engines
from which remarkable speed performances were
obtained, thus indicating its possible adaptation to
further marine purposes. The Parsons designs pur-
chased by Mr. Westinghouse were the result of Eng-
lish practice, and not adapted to the conditions under
which it was desired to develop this type of prime
mover in the United States. Under Westinghouse's
direction, important constructional changes were

1 84 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

made and suitable electric generators designed, so
that the combined outfit was put upon the market
to supply electricity for light and power. In the
original form the speeds of the Parsons machines
had been very high and their efficiency rather low ;
in the form developed by Westinghouse, both features
were so improved that the machines compared
favorably with the best type of reciprocating steam
engine in the matter of efficiency, weighed much less,
occupied much smaller space, and required less care
and attention in their operation.

The development of the steam turbine in the last
few years has been accompanied by almost astounding
results. Single units of more than 75,000 horse
power are in operation and still larger sizes in con-
templation. The thermal efficiency of the later
machines has reached a point which engineers not
many years ago regarded as unattainable. The
results in gains to the public at large from these
advances are of marked value, as evidenced by the
wide extension of distributed electric power at rela-
tively low cost, so that many forms of mechanism
of great utility and contributing to domestic comfort
are made available. For practically all purposes,
other forms of prime movers have been displaced as
the result of the availability of cheap and convenient
electric power. The gas engine, which at one time
seemed to have an important future, has been for
the present relegated to a minor position in the
matter of power production.

One of the possibilities which impressed the mind
of Westinghouse in developing the turbine for marine

FROM NIAGARA TO THE NAVY 185

uses was this : if the same propulsive power could
be got from an engine occupying only a fraction of
the space required by the engines then in use in ships,
there would be more room for the coal bunkers,
which in turn meant a wider steaming radius, letting
a vessel stay longer out of port without resorting to
coaling at sea ; and if these advantages could be
obtained without the vibration or thumping of
reciprocating engines, the machinery would last
longer and would need less frequent repairs. In
order to make sure that he was on the right track,
he called into consultation Rear-Admiral Melville,
a retired engineer-in-chief of the navy, and one of
his most experienced associates, John H. Macalpine,
and set them to work at a laborious investigation of
the whole subject.

Their first report was not encouraging. The
trouble with the turbine was that it did not too little,
but altogether too much. Its greatest economic
efficiency, they said, was at high speed, whereas that
of the propeller was at a comparatively low rate of
revolution. If the propeller were driven too fast, it
simply cut holes in the water instead of pushing the
ship along ; but to reduce the speed of the turbine
below a certain degree involved a great waste of
energy, and to drop it still lower rendered it incapable
of running the propeller. So the problem narrowed
down to the discovery of a means of using a high-
speed engine to drive a low-speed propeller and yet
conserve the force of both to the utmost.'

This Melville and Macalpine accomplished by an
invention that made practicable the use of gearing

186 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

to connect the turbine with the propeller shaft, the
gears being so proportioned as to permit each element
to run at its most efficient speed. While gearing had
formerly been employed to a limited extent for some-
what similar purposes, no general success had at-
tended the effort to make it applicable to the large
powers necessary in marine propulsion. The Mel-
ville-Macalpine system employs what is technically
described as a "floating frame", one element of the
general arrangement that carries the pinions trans-
mitting the power from the turbine to the main gears
driving the propeller. The floating frame is so de-
signed as automatically to maintain perfect alignment
between the teeth of the pinions and gears, the work-
ing pressures of the contacting teeth being thus
limited to a degree that prevents destructive wear.
The Machine Company, under the direction of West-
inghouse, built an experimental set of gears capable
of transmitting seventy-five hundred horse power.
These operated successfully, and, when placed in the
United States collier Neptune, realized all the ex-
pectations of the inventors and of Westinghouse,
who had made important contributions to the basic
scheme.

Since this successful installation, the use of gears
has become almost universal in the newer naval ves-
sels, and their employment in connection with the
highly efficient steam turbines now available marks
a most important advance in the art of marine pro-
pulsion. It is worth noting, moreover, that the ex-
perimental development of the Melville-Macalpine
invention was carried on by Mr. Westinghouse during

FROM NIAGARA TO THE NAVY 187

the receivership period of the Machine Company,
against the strong opposition of the engineering and
financial directors of the Company at that time.

There was included in the Neptune experiment,
a most ingenious invention of H. T. Herr, Vice Presi-
dent of the Machine Company, by means of which
the pilot or steersman was given entire control over
the propelling machinery without the intervention
of manual operation in the engine room. The opera-
tions of starting, stopping, speed regulation, and
reversing were effected directly from the pilot house ;
and, though the mechanism worked as designed, the
innovation was so radical that it was regarded askance
by most naval men, who knew only the old method
of giving the engineer his orders through speaking
tubes and bells. It will be taking no great risk in
prophecy to assert that the more modern method of
control will presently come into general use. Its
advantages, particularly in the manipulation of ves-
sels engaged in battle or threatened with collision,
are obvious even to the popular mind. In not a few
respects it parallels on the water the instantaneous
mastery of his train by the locomotive driver in his
cab, with the lever of his air brake within reach of
his hand.

CHAPTER XIV
"BLUSHING HONORS THICK UPON HIM"

As we have already seen, George Westinghouse
had no notion of confining his activities to the coun-
try of his home, but from the hour of his first success
began to lay plans covering the civilized world.
Wherever he saw a possible opening, however re-
mote, he lost no time about arranging for its occupa-
tion. In this way, while keeping Pittsburgh for their
permanent base, his various industries established
outposts in all the leading countries of Europe.

As early as 1888 he had obtained a contract for
an electric plant capable of lighting a considerable
area in London. Everything for this purpose was
manufactured in Pittsburgh and shipped over.
Other contracts which followed, extending into vari-
ous lines of electrical equipment, were handled in
the ^ same way. By 1897 the English orders had
mounted in multitude so as to arouse an inquiry
in both countries whether the supplies could not
be more promptly and economically furnished if
there were a factory on the ground, especially as
England was taking kindly to rapid transit by trolley
on the American plan, and the Westinghouse Electric
and Manufacturing Company was recognized as a

"BLUSHING HONORS THICK UPON HIM" 189

source from which to procure the very latest inven-
tions. A group of prominent Englishmen interested
in engineering enterprises accepted directorships
in the British branch, which was enlarged in scope
and heavily capitalized, and a tract of about one
hundred and thirty acres of land was bought at
Trafford Park, on the outskirts of Manchester,
adjoining the ship canal and with abundant rail-
road facilities, as a site for the works. These were
to cover thirty acres under roof ; and, as it was a
part of Westinghouse's plan to house his men as
well as hire them, a building company laid out a
somewhat smaller tract near by as a residence town.

Under the new organization, the British company
was to receive from the American company the
rights for the British Empire, exclusive of Canada,
in all the Westinghouse electric patents then exist-
ing, and all that might be issued during the follow-
ing ten years. The two corporations were to co-
operate in every way. The articles of incorporation
of the British company were made so broad as to
include power to conduct pretty nearly any sort of
business it wished to, from running a hotel and rent-
ing dwellings to managing schools and banks, so
that, in standing sponsor for its undertakings, the
American company was laying itself liable to a good
many vicissitudes.

Though assigning the supervision of the plans and
the preparation of the estimates to his own engineers,
Westinghouse made a strong point, from politic
considerations, of having only British labor employed
in the actual work of building the shops. A Man-

190 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

Chester contractor was engaged to lay the founda-
tions, and a London contractor to put up the steel
framework, but neither was willing to predict when
his share of the task would be finished. Several
weeks passed before the first spadeful of earth was
turned, and fully six months before the foundations
had reached a stage where the steel men could attack
the superstructure. Meanwhile the orders were
piling up, and the dates fixed when they must be
filled left only eighteen months' leeway for rearing
nine huge buildings. The situation was exasper-
ating. Winter was drawing near, and the best
the contractors would venture to. guess was five
years for the completion of the job. Then some-
thing happened.

Coming over from New York to Pittsburgh one
night, Westinghouse found on his train James C.
Stewart, a member of a contracting firm who had
performed some wonderfully rapid and effective
services for him in the past, and in the course of
their conversation the Trafford Park delays came
up for comment. On arriving in Pittsburgh the
following morning, Stewart went at once to West-
inghouse's office and looked over the plans. He
seemed to see something deliciously humorous in
the five-years' suggestion of the British contractors.

"With the right management," was his verdict,
after a little calculation, "there is no reason why
that work should take more than fifteen months."

"Would you undertake to finish it in that time?"
asked Westinghouse.

"On my own terms -- yes."

"BLUSHING HONORS THICK UPON HIM" 191

The terms were such as to insure to Stewart
rather magnificent profits, but Westinghouse accepted
his proposal. He had now got hold of a man after
his own heart, and a contract was signed at once.
This was in January, 1901. Stewart caught the
next steamer for Liverpool, landing on the twenty-
fourth. He had never been in England before, but
he hastened to Manchester, looked over the ground,
and cabled to two of his best American assistants
to join him. Though a thousand miles apart when
his message reached them, they met aboard ship on
the first of February. When their vessel stopped
off Queenstown they learned that Stewart was
about starting back to America to get his mechani-
cal supplies, so they hired a tender and went out to
meet him. As his steamer came up, there he was,
leaning over the rail. In another minute there
landed on their deck a fat package of papers, which
on opening they discovered to be their working
orders written out to the minutest detail, so that
when they reached Manchester the next day they
had only to hasten to Trafford Park and plunge
into their task.

Stewart was absent from England three weeks.
By that time he had collected the American ma-
chinery and implements he needed, and ten more
assistants — young men whom he had thoroughly
trained in his way of doing business. With his
little staff he went at things in true Yankee fashion.
A month or more the whole party worked not only
all day but far into the night, snatching a bite of
food how and when they could, and contenting

192 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

themselves with four or five hours' sleep in order
to rise at six and repeat the performance.

It was a strenuous life, but it paid. The laborers
at work when Stewart took hold numbered less than
two hundred and fifty ; within a month he had a
force of twenty-five hundred which he gradually
increased to nearly four thousand. He looked
after everything personally, substituting American
methods for British wherever time could be saved.
He ran a line of track from the nearest railway freight
station to the grounds, and spurs of this into every
building, thus bringing in between two and three
hundred carloads of material a day. He furnished
the steel workers with automatic riveters to super-
sede the tedious manual labor they had been doing,
and thus more than quadrupled their speed. He
replaced the human hodcarriers with stearn hoists
for lifting bricks and mortar to any story of the
buildings, and showed the bricklayers with his
own hands how to lay from eighteen hundred to
twenty-five hundred brick a day instead of the five or
six hundred they had been accustomed to lay, pay-
ing them a penny an hour more than their usual wages
when they imitated him. By a little encouragement
distributed here and there, he managed to infuse
into the whole undertaking so much of the spirit
which characterized all Westinghouse work at home,
that he had eight of the nine buildings ready for
occupancy in ten months, and the ninth as soon as
some belated changes in the plans made it possible.

When it is remembered that there entered into
the construction twelve million feet of lumber, ten

11 BLUSHING HONORS THICK UPON HIM" 193

million brick, fifteen thousand tons of steel, one
hundred seventy-five thousand feet of glass, and
forty thousand square yards of paving ; that the
cost ran well above a million dollars, of which Brit-
ish wage-earners received the largest benefit ; that
the whole performance under American direction
consumed less than one fifth of the time estimated
for it by the British contractors consulted ; and that
the first big job to which the new establishment
addressed itself was the electrification of the Met-
ropolitan District and Underground Railways of
London — an improvement of which the gross cost
was twenty-five million dollars — it seems scarcely
wonderful that the press of the world was soon
ringing with "the Westinghouse Invasion of Eng-
land."

Many honors came to George Westinghouse in
the course of his busy life. Union College, his
alma mater, conferred upon him the degree of Doctor
of Philosophy. The Koenigliche Technische Hoch-
schule of Berlin made him a Doctor of Engineer-
ing. France took him into her Legion of Honor,
King Humbert decorated him with the Order of the
Crown of Italy, and he received the Order of Leo-
pold of Belgium from the hands of King Leopold II
in person. The Franklin Institute, within a few
years of his first success, awarded him the Scott
premium and medal for his improvements in air
brake construction. He was the first American
to receive from the Society of German Engineers
the Grashof medal, which is considered in Germany

194 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

the highest honor that can be conferred upon an
engineer. He was the second recipient of the John
Fritz medal, the first having been Mr. Fritz himself.
He was one of the two honorary members of the
American Association for the Advancement of
Science. He belonged to a large number of scientific
and technological societies, and was called to the
presidency of some of them. His immersion in his
work, together with his native modesty, moved him
to decline more such offices than he accepted, and
also to flee from honorary degrees offered him by
sundry American colleges in which he was in no way
interested.

One of the things he most dreaded in connection
with the acceptance of such dignities was making
a speech. In May, 1905, the International Rail-
way Congress met in Washington. As it embraced
delegates from forty-eight countries besides our own,
as it held its meetings only once in five years, and
as this was its first visit to the United States, the
occasion was regarded as of great importance, and
the desire was universal that the American citizen
most widely known for his practical achievements
for the safety, speed, and comfort of rail transporta-
tion should be its chairman. George A. Post of
New York, President of the Railway Business Asso-
ciation, was deputed to convey the invitation.
Mr. Westinghouse received it with evidences of
genuine dismay, especially when he found that he
must open the sessions with a formal address. He
declared that he could not make a speech to such an
audience — he should be tongue-tied with fright.

"BLUSHING HONORS THICK UPON HIM" 195

As he resisted all ordinary arguments, Mrs. West-
inghouse was called upon to lend her aid, and held
her ground so pertinaciously that he capitulated.
Even after he had written the speech he brought
it to Mr. Post to look over and criticize.

"His manuscript/' said Mr. Post, in narrating
the incident to me, "was a fine piece of work from
the point of view of comprehensiveness and clarity
of expression ; but I promptly drew his attention
to the fact that it ignored, except for a brief passing
reference, the momentous subject of the introduction
of electricity as an agency of transportation.

"I have been personally so involved in that
movement,' he answered, 'that I feared it might
seem like egotism for me to enlarge upon it.'

"I induced him, nevertheless, to rewrite enough
of the address to treat the missing topic as it deserved.
When he handed back the revised product he was
still suffering from premonitory stage-fright. ' I
feel weaker and weaker as the time approaches/
said he ; 'I really don't see how I am going to get
through this speech.'

"He took comfort from my suggestion that,
instead of attempting to commit his remarks to
memory, he read them ; and the opening day found
him as composed as if he were going to one of his
own directors' meetings. Even had he not been
heartened by my assurances, he could not have
helped being affected by what followed his ascent
of the platform. The audience he was facing was
well sprinkled with men whose aristocratic or aca-
demic titles had been blazoned far and wide. This

196 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

furnished me a pretext for presenting him, by subtle
contrast, as 'one who needs neither prefix nor affix
to his name — - George Westinghouse.' The storm
of applause and cheers which greeted him as he
stepped forward spoke for itself in point of sincerity.'*
Of all the tributes paid him in this line, I suspect
that two stood a trifle apart from the rest as giving
him peculiar pleasure. One was a little paragraph
which appeared in Life in October, 1899, in a depart-
ment it was publishing weekly under the heading,
"Popular Birthdays":

GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE, BORN OCT. 6, 1846
My dear Mr. Westinghouse :

This is just a brief line sent to you in hopes that
it will reach you promptly on the morning of your
birthday. Men like you are of more value to a State
than others I could mention --but why spoil a
happy day by making comparisons? Your crea-
tions are like works of art — not only give pleasure,
but have a practical value. Where Shakespeare
wrought in words, you work in iron and steel. It
is good to think of you alive and with us yet, and may
Time deal kindly with one whose name is above
reproach.

With many congratulations, believe me

Ever yours,

LIFE.

Coming "out of the blue", as it were, from a jour-
nal with which he had no relation, the genuinely
friendly spirit of this note warmed his heart. The
other tribute was of a wholly different character
-nothing less than the award, in 1912, by the
American Institute of Electrical Engineers, of the

"BLUSHING HONORS THICK UPON HIM" 197

Edison gold medal for ''meritorious achievements
in the development of the alternating current sys-
tem." That after a quarter-century of strife, he
should receive such a recognition with the name of
his great antagonist attached to it, founded on his
success in the very field where they had fought their
hardest battle, seemed indeed the crowning triumph
of his career as a pioneer in the industrial utilization
of electricity in America.

From the catalogue of honors must not be omitted
two others which emphasize certain qualities more
important than technical skill or resourcefulness,
scientific learning or prophetic vision. In an earlier
chapter, mention was made of the Philadelphia
Company, which, thanks to the breadth of its char-
ter, began as a natural gas distributing corporation
and gradually absorbed a large share of the public
utilities of Pittsburgh. At a stage in its affairs when
all the conditions seemed ripe, an offer came to Mr.
Westinghouse, through a New York banking house,
for the purchase of his controlling interest at a price
well above the current market quotations, but he
refused to sell unless the minority stockholders were
given the chance to sell their shares at an equal
price. Then he announced this to the minority,
telling them that they need not sell unless they
wished to, but that those who were satisfied with
the price might make over their stock to him, and
he would sell it with his own. In less than three
days, more than two thirds of the remaining shares
were locked up in his safe. As soon as he had all
the stock in his custody, he carried it to New York,

198 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

met the prospective purchasers, and laid before them
a statement of the affairs of the Company. They
accepted his word without any examination of the
books, and took over his whole budget of certificates
at the price originally offered. This exhibition of
confidence by the parties on both sides of the bar-
gain attracted wide attention at the time, and has
often since been cited in connection with a later
episode of kindred significance.

Early in 1905,- underwriting circles throughout
the country were startled by a scandal which broke
out in New York, involving charges of abuse of
trust by the officers of some of the great life insur-
ance companies. It was precipitated by the death
of Henry B. Hyde, the largest shareholder in the
Equitable Life Assurance Society, which was then
conducted as an ordinary joint stock company.
For some time a violent struggle had been going
on for mastery in the management between the
Hyde party, which claimed the exclusive right, by
virtue of its stock ownership, and another called
the Alexander party, representing the policy hold-
ers, who claimed that, as their annual contribution
furnished the means for running the business, they
should have supreme authority in its administra-
tion. A crisis in this controversy set afoot inquiries
which presently made plain the need for a general
overhauling of the local life insurance traffic. Gov-
ernor Higgins sent a special message on the subject
to the legislature, which responded by appointing
a commission of investigation. The commission chose
as its counsel Charles E. Hughes, whose adroit exam-

"BLUSHING HONORS THICK UPON HIM" 199

ination of witnesses unearthed a mass of shocking evi-
dence and incidentally won him a national reputation.

It was shown, among other things, that trust
funds had been used for procuring desired legisla-
tion, and for speculation in securities designed for
the companies' investments ; that one insurance
officer held directorships in several railroad and
other companies, traceable to his control over his
own company's investment funds ; that well-known
attorneys were receiving annual salaries as retainers,
without rendering any compensatory service ; that
agents were indulging in all sorts of trickery, such as
accepting potatoes from farmers and passes from
railroad men in payment of premiums, taking notes
instead of money and making no effort to collect
them, and allowing rebates under conditions which
opened an endless vista of fraud.

Even before these revelations of corruption had
been formally spread upon the record, popular sus-
picion had become so strong that many shareholders
in the Equitable, both in this country and in Europe,
had disposed of their stock at a sacrifice, and the
new business of the Society was falling off so that
its bankruptcy seemed inevitable. At this juncture
Thomas Fortune Ryan, the New York financier,
came to the rescue. He formed a syndicate to pur-
chase control of the Society, with its four hundred
million dollars' worth of accumulated assets and its
six hundred thousand policyholders, and announced
his purpose of reorganizing it on a mutual basis.
It was a bold stroke, but probably the only one
which could save the day not merely for the Equi-

200 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

table but for American life insurance generally ; for,
in view of the peculiar nature of the interests in-
volved, with their possibilities of disaster for thou-
sands of helpless widows and orphans, the upgrowth
of adverse sentiment was taking on the aspect of
a great public calamity.

But how was Mr. Ryan to stem so violent a tide ?
If he kept the control of the Society in his own hands,
how many people would believe that he had any
higher motive in buying it than a desire to turn the
purchase to his personal profit as promptly as pos-
sible ? Before paying a dollar of the price, he had
thought out his plan for putting the policyholders
in control of the Society, working to this end through
a board of three trustees — men whose names would
silence all cavil, and in whom he could afford to vest
an extraordinary prerogative. They were to hold
the unrestricted power to vote the stock, to prepare
the necessary amendments to the charter, to super-
vise every stage of the reorganization, and be answer-
able to the public for its cleanness of design, and to
choose thirty of the fifty-two directors, leaving the
stockholders to elect the remaining twenty-two.
For two members of his triumvirate, he selected
Grover Cleveland, the only living ex- President of
the United States, and Morgan J. O'Brien, who had
been for nearly twenty years a highly esteemed Jus-
tice of the Supreme Court of the State and was then
presiding over its appellate division. As to the
third member he consulted with several friends whose
judgment he held most in respect. In view of the
two selections already made, he did not care about

" BLUSHING HONORS THICK UPON HIM" 201

a public officer or a learned lawyer; his hope was
to find a business man known throughout the world
for intelligence, courage, energy, force of character,
and, above everything else, unimpeachable honesty.
The man who, of all considered by him and his
friends, seemed to meet best this composite demand,
was George Westinghouse.

The messenger chosen to convey to Mr. Westing-
house the request for his services was Paul D.
Cravath, who had been one of his chief legal counsel
for years, and whose intimate friendship with him,
it was thought, would make for his acceptance
of his trust. A less propitious season for such a
proposal it would have been hard to choose. The
business of the Electric and Manufacturing Com-
pany had expanded so rapidly that its executive
resources were overtaxed, and more and more of its
president's time and thought and financial credit
were continually required to carry things along.
Almost any other man than Mr. Westinghouse
would have been overwhelmed by the load of re-
sponsibility which was heaping upon his single pair
of shoulders, and would have insisted upon throw-
ing some of it off rather than taking more on. Mr.
Cravath, in presenting Mr. Ryan's request, made
no secret of the seriousness of the burden which the
trustees would have to assume. With all the facts
before him, the argument that finally won Mr. West-
inghouse's consent to serve was one based on his duty
as a good citizen to put aside his personal preferences
in the presence of a crisis with which, for some reason,
he was regarded as especially fitted to cope.

202 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

Within a week the trustees met, organized, and
laid out their general scheme of work. There were
several vacancies to be filled in the board of direc-
tors, and, as these had been caused by the resigna-
tions of James J. Hill, August Belmont, Henry C.
Frick, Jacob H. Schiff, John A. Stewart, Andrew J.
Cassatt, and other men of like substance, the impor-
tance of finding successors of business prominence
was obvious. More than two hundred names came
up for review, a few of the best suggestions emanat-
ing from a little group of policyholders who had
banded together to do their utmost for the salvation
of the Society. The trustees were occasionally put
to their trumps by the need of rapid action. One
candidate, for instance, lived in a far Southern State,
but possessed natural qualities and a fund of experi-
ence so admirably suited to the work he would have
to do that the trustees were a unit in their desire
to secure him. A search of the lists, however,
showed that he lacked an essential requisite: he
was not a policyholder. Fortunately, this was a
fault that could be quickly remedied ; and, between
the hours of eleven in the morning and two in the
afternoon on the day of the discovery, the gentle-
man made his formal application, underwent his
examination, and had his policy issued, thanks to
the activity of the trustees and other officers of the
company and the liberal employment of the tele-
graph.

The soundness of Mr. Ryan's judgment in the
choice of his triumvirate was amply proved. For
the three years preceding Mr. Cleveland's death

"BLUSHING HONORS THICK UPON HIM" 203

their action on nearly all questions brought before
them was unanimous, and where they differed in
opinions it was a mutually respectful difference, and
not on vital matters. The faith of the public in
their high qualifications was shown when, prepara-
tory to the first election, they sent out to every policy-
holder two papers with carefully couched explana-
tions of the meaning and force of each — a blank
ballot, and a proxy containing their own names ;
for of the ninety thousand responses, only forty-five
hundred made any use of the ballot, the others
containing signed proxies committing the whole
business to the discretion of the trustees.

CHAPTER XV

A SECOND FINANCIAL ORDEAL

AFTER so many years of success in overcoming the
difficulties that confronted him in building up his
organizations, George Westinghouse was destined to
suffer the reaction which is due from time to time in
all evolutionary processes. We have seen how his
Electric and Manufacturing Company passed through
the ordeal of the early 'QO'S and came out triumphant.
But its very prosperity at a time when the general
business of the country was most depressed involved
it in fresh perils by begetting overconfidence.

To enlarge its resources, it first increased its capital
stock ; then it issued collateral trust bonds, later
debenture bonds, and later still collateral trust notes ;
till, with its multiplication of fixed charges, its ex-
traordinarily liberal dividend policy, the maturing of
many of its short-term obligations, and the advances
it was compelled to make to protect its foreign
dependencies — none of which, except the Canadian
concern, was on a paying basis — the percentage
of net profits to capital declined year after year at
an alarming rate. This was not a sign of collapsing
traffic : on the contrary, it was due to the steady
expansion of the Company's business. The era of

A SECOND FINANCIAL ORDEAL 205

electrical development had set in with abnormal
energy. More light and power and traction com-
panies were organizing than could be readily financed ;
and when those of a strictly local character found
themselves unable to market their securities on rea-
sonable terms, they had to fall back upon the manu-
facturing companies from whom they were buying
their equipment, settling their purchases only partly
in cash, and giving notes for the balance with a
deposit of their own stocks and bonds as collateral.

Thus it came about that, with its trade continually
on the increase, the Electric and Manufacturing
Company was faced with a perilous embarrassment.
The banks had been overloaded with the negotiable
paper of the small concerns, and began to retrench
on their discounts. In accordance with his habit in
forecasting the future, Westinghouse read in these
phenomena only their hopeful portent. The enor-
mous diffusion of the uses of electricity, and the rapid
cheapening of methods for producing it, pointed, for
him, to a near day when it should penetrate every
branch of industry, public and private. What his
prophetic vision overlooked was the ever-increasing
need of the means of sustenance for this growth.
Unfortunately for him, the men who controlled those
means were unable to share his optimism as to the
ultimate prospect.

During all this period there was not only no
shrinkage in the Company's dividends, but a positive
inflation. The rate on both preferred and common
stock, starting at seven per cent, rose first to nine
and then to ten per cent. Naturally this increased

206 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

the speculative value of the stocks, but it had the
concurrent effect of diminishing the ratio of working
capital to volume of trade. For example, the pros-
perous year ending March 31, 1907, showed a profit
applicable to dividends approximating two million
eight hundred thousand dollars, but the dividends
at the prevailing high rate ate up almost two million
and a half of this, leaving less than three hundred
thousand dollars with which to tide over the first
exigencies of the fiscal year. In the meantime the
loans needed were obtained from the banks with
more and more difficulty and at a greater and greater
cost ; an issue of fifteen million dollars of convertible
debenture bonds, made in 1906, had been launched
only at a net discount of nearly six per cent. As the
floating debt continued to rise, resort was had to a
new issue of stock, which was offered to the existing
shareholders at fifty per cent above par — a pre-
mium ostensibly justified by the ten per cent divi-
dend which the Company was then paying and an-
nounced its purpose to maintain. But the effort
was ineffective, for clouds were already gathering
thick on the financial horizon, premonitory of the
storm which was to break in the autumn and sweep
over the entire country.

The middle of October, 1907, found the Company
in actual straits. On the fifteenth it paid its usual
quarterly dividend ; but a fresh stock issue on which
it had counted to bring seven and a half million
dollars into its treasury had yielded only about one
third of that sum, and, in order to accomplish even
this, Westinghouse and one or two other large stock-

A SECOND FINANCIAL ORDEAL 207

holders had been obliged to come forward and prac-
tically divide the subscription among them. It was
carrying a bond burden of some thirty million dollars ;
most of its floating debt of fourteen million dollars
was due or approaching maturity ; and in view of the
situation the banks in Pittsburgh and elsewhere were
refusing any extension of time on the nine million
dollars or more they had advanced, while the credi-
tors for merchandise furnished were pressing their
claims, aggregating about five million dollars, for
payment. Behind all these direct obligations stood
the consideration due to the stockholders, whose
interest amounted in round numbers to twenty-nine
million dollars, almost all the shares having been
bought at prices above par.

On the eighteenth, Westinghouse, who was in New
York, telegraphed his financial secretary, Walter
Uptegraff, to meet him there, and their canvass of
the whole matter led to the conclusion that, unless
the outstanding loans could be renewed or four mil-
lion dollars in cash raised at once, the company must
go to the wall. New York was out of the question
as a further source of assistance, so they hastened
back to Pittsburgh and called into consultation
Judge J. H. Reed, an old and good friend. Reed
made straight for the local bankers, setting the actual
facts before them as to the inherent strength of the
Company, and enlarging on the economic unwisdom,
on public grounds alone, of letting so magnificent an
asset of the city suffer damage for lack of the means
needed to relieve a momentary pressure. For twenty-
four hours there seemed a chance that the threatened

208 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

catastrophe might be averted. Then came the
twenty-second, with its news that the Knickerbocker
Trust Company in New York had failed, and that
the money center of the country was in the throes of
a panic. On the twenty- third, therefore, the di-
rectors of the Electric and Manufacturing Company
applied to the United States Circuit Court for the
appointment of receivers.

After the event, of course, there were a multitude
of wiseacres in the neighborhood who shook their
heads solemnly and said they had long felt certain
of what was coming. The rest of the community,
outside of banking circles, was taken by surprise.
It had been the policy of the founder and president
of the Company to waive needless formalities, and,
as most of his fellow shareholders had appeared
entirely content with his administration, he had not
taken the trouble to advertise its details to the world.
No report beyond a mere generality or two had been
issued between 1897 and 1907, nor had any regular
stockholders' meeting been held during the same
period except in 1906. On that occasion a handful
of persons present, led by a prominent broker, de-
manded explanations of sundry transactions of the
Company which had taken place on the authority
of a special meeting of stockholders and directors:
one was an issue of new stock and another the pur-
chase of a small railroad. Westinghouse himself
was absent when the colloquy took place, and Vice-
President Herr, who was in the chair, assured the
dissenters that the reason the Company did not issue
more elaborate reports was because it preferred not

A SECOND FINANCIAL ORDEAL 209

to expose its inner affairs to the scrutiny of its busi-
ness rivals.

At the 1907 meeting, however, Westinghouse pre-
sided, and invited all who were seeking information
to interrogate him. In response to their inquiries
he explained that the issue of additional stock men-
tioned the year before had been made because the
Company was receiving orders of such magnitude
that it must have more cash in hand to execute them.
He added frankly that, borrowing when the money
market was exceptionally tight, it had been charged
inordinate rates for the accommodation. As to the
railroad purchased, it was a valuable property, the
securities of which had been taken over as part of a
large transaction that resulted to the advantage of
the Company. The questioners were very compli-
mentary afterward in their references to the candor
of his statement, and an incident which at first
threatened to cause an insurrection was closed.

However astute any outsiders may have been,
there were members of the inner circle of the Com-
pany's management to whom the news of its em-
barrassment came almost without warning. One
was Vice President Herr. At half-past five on the
afternoon of the twenty-second of October, he was
talking over a routine matter with Westinghouse,
who appeared as composed as usual ; and as they
finished their conversation Westinghouse remarked :

"Herr, I shall have a new job for you to-morrow."

"What's that?" asked Herr.

"Receiver of the Electric Company."

Overnight, the news filtered out in various direc-

210 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

tions, but some persons who heard it found it difficult
to credit when they saw all the men busy the next
day at their usual tasks, and the chief wearing an
unclouded brow. At half-past nine in the morning,
while his counsel were preparing the final papers for
presentation to the court, one of his lieutenants called
to see him about a matter of current business. When
it was disposed of, he exclaimed as buoyantly as if
financial straits were the subject furthest from his
mind: "By the way, Macfarland, I've got an idea
now for our turbine that will make a sensation when
we bring it out !"

Nevertheless it proved a stirring day in the chief's
own office in the Westinghouse Building. Telegraph
boys were scurrying back and forth, the telephone
bell kept up an unceasing clatter, and visitors would
run in for a brief interview and out again with equal
haste.

Westinghouse saw those with whom he felt he
could speak freely, but excused himself to any whom
he suspected of coming chiefly from motives of curi-
osity. To all who inquired about the situation he
said the same thing in effect : '"The Company is not
insolvent — only hampered for the moment. It is
doing more business than ever before. It will come
out all right." And to an old friend whose voice had
a particularly despondent inflection he counseled
calmness, adding: "I grant you that this is not
pleasant, but it isn't the biggest thing in the world.
All large business has its ups and downs. The crisis
through which we are passing is only part of our day's
work."

A SECOND FINANCIAL ORDEAL 211

Whoever imagined from his manner that he was
simply indifferent made a sad mistake. He realized
to the full the force of the blow that had fallen upon
him, but he was made of the sort of metal that does
not break under beating. His thoughts went out
in the hour of his own stress to the unhappiness of
many who, on the strength of his name, had bought
electric stock at its price of two days before, and seen
it drop forty per cent in twenty-four hours. He
drew some consolation from the fact that the local
stock exchange had closed its doors that morning,
to remain shut till the storm blew over, and he issued
statements to the newspapers advising all share-
holders not to throw their holdings overboard in the
panic but wait till the air cleared and the Company
righted itself, as he was convinced it would soon.
Conditions, he admitted, were not the same in 1891,
because the Company had now exhausted its market
for junior securities, and another solution than a
fresh issue would have to be devised for the present
difficulty.

The failure of the Electric and Manufacturing
Company carried down with it for a short time three
other Westinghouse concerns : the Machine Com-
pany, the Nernst Lamp Company — a minor per-
sonal venture of Westinghouse's — and the Security
Investment Company. As the troubles of this trio
were adjustable separately, they need not occupy
our attention further ; and neither the Air Brake
Company nor the Union Switch and Signal Company
was affected at all.

The creditors divided themselves naturally into

212 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

four groups, each of which appointed a committee
to represent it in the negotiations which were to
follow. That chosen by the bankers was the "re-
organization" committee proper, and to cooperate
with it there were a merchandise creditors' committee,
an employees' committee, and a stockholders' com-
mittee. The bankers, representing clients in Pitts-
burgh, New York, Boston, Chicago, and a string of
lesser cities and towns stretching from the Atlantic
Coast to the Pacific, vetoed peremptorily most of
the plans first proposed. The other committees
seemed generally sympathetic with the desire of
Westinghouse himself that measures be adopted for
immediate relief, trusting to time and the obvious
momentum of the Company's business to work out
the ultimate salvation of all the interests concerned.
The more conservative element among them looked
less kindly upon his insistence that the support of
the foreign companies and branches should be es-
pecially safeguarded in any agreement reached, for
the objectors could see in these offspring only a drag
upon the parent company.

Scheme after scheme was put forward only to be
swept aside, and it was not till toward the end of
March, 1908, that a basis was reached on which all
parties could come together. Although the chief
credit for it undoubtedly was due to Westinghouse,
it came to be known as the merchandise creditors'
plan, because it had for its central idea the funding
of substantially the entire debt of the Company into
stock, and this would demand of the merchandise
creditors, as a matter of course, a heavier sacrifice

A SECOND FINANCIAL ORDEAL 213

than of any one else. They were to accept four mil-
lion dollars* worth of new stock in liquidation of their
claims, and, as ten million dollars was fixed as the sum
required to procure the dissolution of the receiver-
ship, the remaining six million dollars was to be ob-
tained by offering that amount of new stock for sub-
scription by the existing shareholders. The banks
were required, under the same plan, to merge half
their claims in convertible five per cent bonds, and
the remaining half either in stock at par, or in fifteen-
year notes at the same rate of interest ; with the
option that the second half might be divided, three
fifths going into five per cent notes maturing serially
in four, five, and six years, and the other two fifths
into stock at par.

The banks could as a rule see little virtue in this
project ; those that yielded most readily did so only
on the assurance that if they did not take this they
might lose more by a forced liquidation and the
permanent ruin of the Company. Some months
later a number who had been holding out discovered
that the new shares were already rising in market
value, and consented to exchange their claims for
the securities offered. The stockholders were yet
harder to deal with. Many raised the objection that
they had not the requisite money in hand ; a larger
number declared that the stock they already owned
had plunged them into misfortune, and they did not
wish any more of the same sort. It was to the latter
class that the stockholders' committee addressed
itself most earnestly.

At first its letters were conciliatory in tone, ex-

214 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

patiating on the duty of all shareholders to keep up
a property of which they were the actual owners ;
these were followed by diplomatic suggestions that a
general and ready response would capture public
attention, stimulate the market for the securities,
send up prices, and make a neat profit for those sub-
scribers who came in at once. Still later came plain
warnings that, unless the reorganization plan were
soon put into operation, the bondholders would force
a sale and the stock would be wholly wiped out, its
holders recovering not a penny of the money they
had spent on it. But, though the final date for
closing the subscription list was postponed again and
again, and "last call" followed "last call" with
mortifying regularity ; though the bankers, whose
position was so strong that they could have wrecked
everything by an inconsiderate move, had seen a
new light ; though Westinghouse personally took up
a million and a half dollars of the new stock ; though
independent banking and brokerage houses which
could have kept quite out of the atmosphere of
trouble voluntarily opened their books for subscrip-
tions and offered to advance the needed money to
subscribers : about eighteen hundred of the four
thousand stockholders were still, as late as October i,
1908, refusing to take over their allotments of the new
stock, and even November 20 found few of the
laggards in line.

Against this showing stood forth in brilliant con-
trast the action of the Company's employees, most of
them men whose limited means had been accumulated
from their daily savings. In the first days of the

A SECOND FINANCIAL ORDEAL 215

reorganization agitation, being recognized as parties
in interest because their livelihood was temporarily
at stake on the survival of the business, they had
appointed a committee to canvass among their own
body for subscriptions to the new stock. When, at
the general conference, the work to be accomplished
was apportioned among the several committees, the
volume of subscriptions assigned to the employees'
committee to collect was three hundred ninety-five
thousand, six hundred fifty dollars ; on the final day
of reckoning, it came forward with six hundred
eleven thousand, two hundred fifty dollars, col-
lected from about five thousand of the workers —
a striking exhibition of loyalty and intelligence on
the part of the men who knew at first hand what was
actually going on in the shops.

On December 5, 1908, less than fourteen months
after the appointment of the receivers, the Company
was taken out of their hands and restored to the stock-
holders, purged of most of the immediate ills which
had beset it. Its net debt had been reduced from
more than forty-four million dollars to less than
thirty-one million dollars, and its annual interest bur-
den by one million dollars ; while its capital stock,
on which there was no fixed liability, had been in-
creased from twenty-nine million dollars to forty-one
million dollars, all sorts of floating debts having been
merged in this increase. There was also another and
radical change, of which Westinghouse had received
intimations but of which he had not realized the im-
minence. In pursuance of an arrangement entered
into when the reorganization plan was adopted, the

2i6 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

bankers and merchandise creditors who had under-
taken to put it through took control of the adminis-
tration and elected a new board of sixteen directors,
selected mainly from among the members of the sev-
eral committees. This board chose for its chairman
Robert Mather, a lawyer of a conservative bent of
mind, who had had large experience in the manage-
ment of the Rock Island Railway. Westinghouse
was left in the office of president, but his authority
was limited to the operating and sales departments,
and the direction of all financial affairs was vested
in Mather.

Temperamentally the two men were wholly un-
congenial. The boundary line between their re-
spective fields was sometimes indistinct in spite of
every effort to define it ; both men were very positive
in their mental attitude toward any question pre-
sented which offered a possibility for difference : and
the difficulty of the situation was intensified by the
fact that Westinghouse had been for so many years
not only the titular head of the Company but its
practical dictator. The result was not hard to fore-
see, especially as unfortunate outside conditions
made the first year meager in profits. In January,
1910, the directors adopted what on its face seemed
a highly complimentary resolution, granting Westing-
house a six months* leave of absence. Soon reports
gained circulation, however, that the vacation he
was invited to take was merely a subterfuge to cover
a quarrel between him and the chairman of the board,
which, as the directors sided with their chairman,
pointed to the early retirement of the president.

A SECOND FINANCIAL ORDEAL 217

These stories proved only too true. At the annual
meeting in July, Westinghouse did not appear or
make any effort for reelection, and the directors
elected Edwin F. Atkins, a prominent manufacturer
and merchant of Boston, to the presidency. By the
summer of 1911, the Company having in the interval
taken sundry courses which he believed unprogressive
and injurious, Westinghouse was ready to open a
campaign for reinstatement, but later reconsidered
this purpose. Nevertheless, when he entered the
annual meeting he carried in his pocket proxies
which, with his own holding, represented about two
hundred thousand shares. His endeavor to make
these effective by moving to permit cumulative
voting was defeated by the majority in control, who
swung four hundred and ninety thousand votes for
any measure or candidate they favored.

This was the last appearance of Westinghouse as
a conspicuous figure in the Electric and Manufac-
turing Company which he founded and had conducted
for the better part of twenty years, and which, of
all his many enterprises, held the supreme place in
his heart. With his elimination ends the story of
the rehabilitation of his corporation after a fall
which an eminent economist has described as "in
point of size, the most considerable mercantile failure
America has ever witnessed." 1 Tragic as the finale
was, not a dissenting note was audible in the com-
ments it drew forth from thoughtful men all over the
world, dwelling upon the enormous debt of gratitude

^'Corporate Promotions and Reorganizations," by Arthur S. Dewing,
Ph.D.

218 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

that humanity owed George Westinghouse for what
he had accomplished as a fearless captain of industry,
even though a combination of untoward circumstances
had prevented his reaping the full measure of material
reward he had so richly earned.

CHAPTER XVI
AIR SPRINGS AND ADDRESSES

AFTER George Westinghouse had been forced out
of the presidency of his Electric and Manufacturing
Company, his old friends recalled a remark he made
to the group of Pittsburgh bankers who, in 1891,
refused to lend him the sum he needed in an emer-
gency: "Well, gentlemen, this only compels me to
do something else." He had no notion of being laid
upon the shelf. His Machine Company was busy
making gas engines and turbines, and to the develop-
ment of these he devoted himself with the zeal of
an artist coming back with a fresh eye to a half-
finished picture. Beside the mechanisms to which
he had already given attention in the past, he
found a new one to interest him, and he owed the
discovery, as he had so many of its predecessors,
to an accident.

The first use of automobiles in this country gave
scant promise of their present universality. Their
cost, their load limitations, their liability to get out
of order, and their general untrustworthiness for
long pulls, at that time, led most practical observers
to discredit the idea of their ever superseding the
delivery dray, the street car, or the suburban railway
for everyday transportation. In view of his almost

220 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

lifelong association with the railroad industry, it
is hardly wonderful that the usually progressive
Westinghouse was among the ultra-conservatives
on this point. If he wished to go somewhere for a
definite purpose, he was glad to go by the shortest
route and the most expeditious conveyance, but
rushing through the air for the mere sake of rest
and refreshment had no attractions for him ; and
when finally, in 1904, he was induced to let the French
Westinghouse Works build an elaborately equipped
limousine car for him as an exhibit of workmanship,
his surrender to a business argument involved no
change in his personal prejudices. In the last years
of his life, it may be said in passing, he became a
convert to the utilitarian view of the automobile,
and used one constantly in running between Pitts-
burgh and the little towns in Turtle Creek Valley
where his various shops were situated.

It was while he was still unconverted to the new
mode of locomotion and ready to consider any fact
to its disparagement, that he accompanied Mrs.
Westinghouse one day on a trip in their limousine
from Lenox, Massachusetts, to Kingston, New York.
The chauffeur happened to overlook an obscure but
deep depression in the road, the car plunged into it,
and with the rebound of the springs the passengers
were thrown violently out of their seats, Westinghouse
striking his head against the roof with a force which
would have wounded him seriously had not his straw
hat served for a buffer. As he removed the ruined
headgear and looked ruefully at it, his first thought
appears to have been not so much of rebuking the

AIR SPRINGS AND ADDRESSES 221

chauffeur as of condemning a machine which was
capable of giving its occupants such an experience.
What were inflated rubber tires for, if not to break
the jars on a rough road ? And of what use were
the best of steel springs, unless they would prevent
one from being racked to pieces between holes and
hummocks? Possibly not much could be done to
improve the action of the tires, but might it not be
possible to make the springs more efficient? To
this question he addressed himself with pencil and
drawing-board immediately on reaching Lenox again.
His sketches he carried later to Pittsburgh and had
a model pair of springs constructed, which he brought
to Lenox and tested on the limousine. When he had
tinkered with these long enough to locate their
chief shortcomings, he made another pair ; and
thus, swinging between Pittsburgh and Lenox, he
kept up his alterations and experiments till he
chanced one day to mention the matter to an old
friend, who asked him whether he had ever heard
of a spring invented by a mechanic in Watervliet,
New York.

"No," he answered. "What kind of a spring?"

"Compressed air."

There was magic in the words. The memory
of his old successes came back to him with a thrill,
and with no unnecessary delay he visited Watervliet
and hunted up the inventor, who proved to be a
German machinist named Richard Liebau. Look-
ing over the model, it did not take Westinghouse
long to see where its defects lay.

"You have a valuable invention here," he com-

222 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

mented with characteristic frankness, "but it is
crude in some details. For one thing, it leaks."

Liebau admitted that the fault was a bad one,
but added that neither he nor the friends who had
worked with him had been able to hit upon any
satisfactory remedy for it, though they had tried
many devices.

"Come with me to Pittsburgh," said Westing-
house, "and we'll study it out together." And
that was what they did.

The Liebau device was of elemental simplicity
in arrangement, consisting of four air cushions
located between the body of the car and the axles,
one at each corner. The cushions were metal
cylinders, with pistons working in them so that the
confined air acted as a spring, the most resilient
medium available. The particular method by which
the leakage was cured was the invention of West-
inghouse ; and though to the final development of
the air spring as we know it to-day there were im-
portant contributions by the engineering force to
whom the matter was delegated, the determining
factor was supplied by the head of the house. In
his earlier experiments, he had great hope of being
able to dispense with the use of pneumatic tires,
and with this end in view he fitted two or three
cars with air springs and solid tires of various forms,
and also invented and constructed spring wheels;
but though, as was his usual habit in such matters,
he dealt with the subject broadly and attacked it
from every point of view, he finally became con-
vinced that for fast-running pleasure cars there had

AIR SPRINGS AND ADDRESSES 223

not yet been devised any substitute for pneumatic
tires.

A company was formed for the manufacture of
the air spring, and it derives a pathetic interest
from the fact that it is the last considerable undertak-
ing of the kind in which the great inventor ever
engaged. It proved to be a profitable enterprise,
and since his death his son, the present George
Westinghouse, has been its president.

It was only after his release from the heaviest of
his executive responsibilities that Westinghouse may
be said to have found himself as a public speaker.
During the most active years of his busy life he had
been called upon from time to time to make an after-
dinner speech at a gathering of his associates, or
offer a few words of welcome when a party of foreign
visitors were to be entertained. We have seen how
he dreaded facing an audience with even the most
informal of utterances, and he discredited every
assurance given him by his hearers that he had
acquitted himself well and needed only a little more
assurance to do better yet. One virtue of his
speeches lay in their always dealing with some sub-
ject with which he was thoroughly familiar, and,
thanks to his lack of artificial training, he expounded
his views with a directness that atoned for any
inelegances of expression. These facts alone would
have sufficed to account for the frequency of the
demands made upon him now that he was supposed
to have more leisure than of old ; but another
factor of quite as much importance was the wide-
spread desire among his professional colleagues to

224 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

prove that, whatever estimate the commercial world
might put upon his work as a financier, their admira-
tion of him as an engineer and their affection for
him as a man had suffered no diminution. On
every occasion which would afford them a pretext,
therefore, they called upon him for an address, and
to not a few calls he responded. His themes were
happily chosen to fit the situation and the times,
and his treatment of them was appropriately practical.

His installation as president of the American
Society of Mechanical Engineers occurred soon
after the Taft administration had begun its sweeping
war upon alleged offenders against the antitrust
law ; and the kernel of his address on taking the
chair was a declaration that " there never was a
time in the history of the world when honest, wise,
and conservative action is more strongly demanded
of us and of all men than now, if we have any desire
to preserve the right to carry on comfortably our
various affairs/'

At a dinner of the American Engineering Societies
held the following year in Boston, he expanded
this point. "For many years," said he, "the tend-
encies have been strongly toward large and power-
ful railway and industrial combinations. Their
very magnitude, coupled with the evil practices so
frequently disclosed in the press and in our law
courts, has so aroused the public that there is now
a fixed determination to establish by national and
State laws an exacting governmental control of
practically all forms of corporations, in order that
competition may be encouraged and not stifled,

AIR SPRINGS AND ADDRESSES 225

but seemingly with due regard to the real objects
in view — the securing of the best public service
in all forms, the best foods and goods for our daily
needs, the greatest possible comfort to the masses,
and as great freedom as possible from those restric-
tions which hinder rather than promote honest
endeavor. Many of the hardships which will arise
might have been avoided by those responsible for
the creation of great combinations had they ap-
preciated the inevitable consequences of their selfish
and unwise course in suppressing competition by
methods transparently wrong. But fortunately
there are indications that the great leaders are alive
to the importance of the regulation of legislation,
and the creation of a sentiment which will bring
business men to their senses. The engineering
societies, by joint action, have it in their power to
do much. Probably there is no better way than to
show, from their knowledge and experience, that un-
regulated competition and rivalry in business have
made our costs greater and rendered ideal conditions
in industrial and engineering matters most difficult
of realization.

"I need only call your attention to the effects
of this unregulated competition in one great in-
dustry--the electrical --which has grown up in
less than twenty-five years. No user of electrical
apparatus can fail to appreciate the advantage it
would be to him, when some repair part is needed,
if certain standards were followed by all constructors
with reference to equivalent devices; but it is
lamentable to say that with the single exception

226 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

of uniform bases for incandescent lamps, there are
now practically no standards. The vast majority
of our inventors proceed along independent lines,
with the result of a constantly growing confusion,
to the disadvantage of everybody/'

By way of illustrating the evils of this unsys-
tematic mode of proceeding, the speaker cited the
case of one large electrical company which manu-
factured a standard motor, yet whose customers
were continually requesting estimates on special
motors embracing some particular feature of a motor
made by another manufacturer. These special es-
timates, even on motors of less than two-hundred
horse power, amounted in a single year to about ten
thousand in number, involving departures from the
standard motor in horse powder or speed rating, or
dimensions of base, or dimensions over all, or height
from base to center of shaft, or weight, or method
of lubrication, or size of shaft, or guaranty of per-
formance. Such demands, of course, laid a heavy
burden upon the manufacturer, and inconvenienced
the purchaser by increased expense and delayed
deliveries; and the experience of the company
alluded to was paralleled by that of fifty others,
every one of which had its individual patterns and
designs, so that probably fifty thousand needless
variations in motors alone had required an addition
of many millions of dollars to the investment already
made in installations of electrical machinery.

The speaker ended with a plea for cooperation
among electrical engineers and manufacturers by
some means like an interchange of products and a

AIR SPRINGS AND ADDRESSES 227

system of license agreements enabling one to obtain
the use of another's patents on the payment of a
royalty. And in order to establish a mutual working
basis equally fair to all, he believed that the parties
in interest, instead of calling for more Government
regulation, might better organize a well-equipped
and officered bureau of standardization and main-
tain it at their joint expense.

The same central idea animated several other
speeches made during the same period. Coopera-
tion and standardization seemed to Westinghouse
the crying needs of the hour in all industries, in
view of their saving of waste in money, thought, and
effort. In an address prepared for delivery at the
meeting of the American Society of Mechanical
Engineers with the Institution of Mechanical En-
gineers in London in the summer of 1910, he took
for his subject "The Electrification of Railways",
and devoted himself to showing the imperative
need for the selection of one electric system for
universal use. Referring to the ambition once cher-
ished by certain railway managers to individualize
their roads by adopting for them gauges which would
prevent the cars and locomotives of connecting
lines from trespassing on their tracks, he recalled
the fact that, as lately as 1878, there were in the
United States eleven different gauges beside the
standard gauge of 4 feet 8-J inches adopted by
Stephenson and since become general. When the
necessity for unification came to be recognized, the
cost of changing gauges was very burdensome to
the roads which had it to do, in some instances

228 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

fastening a permanent debt upon them. He laid
down as five fundamental requisites for standardiz-
ing steam lines : a standard gauge of track, a stand-
ard of interchangeable type of coupling for vehicles,
a uniform interchangeable type of brake apparatus,
interchangeable heat apparatus, and a uniform
system of train signals. To these must be added,
in the case of electric railways, three more : a supply
of electricity of uniform quality as to voltage and
periodicity ; conductors for this, so uniformly placed
with reference to the rails that, without change of
any kind, an electrically-fitted locomotive or car can
collect its supply of current when on the lines of
other companies ; and uniform apparatus for con-
trol of electric supply, whereby two or more elec-
trically-fitted locomotives or cars from different
lines can be operated together from one locomotive
or car.

His repeated prophecy of the ultimate electrifica-
tion of all the great railways remains still unfulfilled,
but many transportation experts who scoffed at the
notion when he first broached it afterward admitted
to him that the change would be only a question of
time. In the light of this, it seemed to him all im-
portant that the choice of the uniform system should
be made without more delay. Railway electrifica-
tion, he argued, had so far been limited to small
areas, usually where the unsuitableness of steam
locomotives for tunnel and terminal service had
compelled the substitution of electric motors there ;
but these limited zones were expanding and after
a time would meet ; and then the same conditions

AIR SPRINGS AND ADDRESSES 229

which had compelled the adoption of certain common
standards for the steam railways would apply still
more forcibly to the electric railways, and the cost
of altering everything over would be a very serious
matter.

Another favorite line followed by Westinghouse
in his prophecies had to do with the progressively
increasing use of electricity in quarters where at
first it had been slow in making its way. This was
the burden of his speech to the Southern Commercial
Congress at Atlanta in the spring of 1911. The
South, said he, was abundantly blessed with coal
mines and waterfalls, and from these resources
could be drawn the vital forces of industry and trans-
portation. The magic agent which would take the
energy of the South's hidden coal, her air, and her
falling water, carry it by easy channels, and cause
it to give the light of a million candles and the power
of a thousand men, move great loads faster than
horses can travel, produce heat without combustion,
and unlock chemical bonds and release new materials,
was electricity. The water courses in the Appala-
chian Mountains could be made to develop from five
to seven million horse power during the dry seasons
of the year and a much larger quantity at other times.
By the use of the alternating current, enough power
could be taken from a single dynamo for operating
telephone and telegraph lines, for producing light
and heat, for running street cars and railway trains,
for working mines and mills and factories, and for
electrochemical operations. As it was possible to
transmit power hundreds of miles from its source,

230 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

water courses unavailable for other uses because of
their inaccessibility or unwholesome surroundings
could be made to furnish power to distant cities,
and run factories planted on high and healthful
sites, or on the outskirts of any town where labor is
most plentiful and transportation facilities are best.
He mentioned one power company in the South
which at that time was drawing power from a number
of different streams in different States, and lighting
forty-five cities and towns, and furnishing current
for six street-railway systems, besides keeping hun-
dreds of motors at work for miscellaneous purposes.

Lines of industry which could be successfully
developed in the South by electric power, he added,
were gold, copper, iron, and coal mining ; ore re-
duction ; food canning ; manufacturing textiles,
cement, fertilizers, lumber, furniture, paper, shoes
and leather, and agricultural implements ; iron and
steel making ; road building, and oil refining. More-
over, experiments made by Sir Oliver Lodge indicated
that the electric stimulation of plant growth might
yet be made to produce wonderful results.

This was his last notable public address, and its
concluding passages are significant for their revela-
tion of the backward and forward movements of his
mind. His painful memories of the close of his
connection with his Electric and Manufacturing
Company were reflected in an "earnest~plea for cumu-
lative voting in the government of corporations, as
a protection for the minority stockholders against
the machinations of a majority clique. The final
sentence of all has a most interesting ring in these

AIR SPRINGS AND ADDRESSES 231

days when militarism and preparedness are upper-
most topics of popular discussion. Impressing upon
young men the importance of learning the lessons
of self-restraint and obedience to authority, and
drawing for illustration upon the value of his own
experiences as a soldier, he said: "The present
preeminence of Germany in industrial matters arises
very largely from the military training and discipline
to which each of her citizens must submit."

CHAPTER XVII

A BIG MAN'S HUMAN SIDE

AN evening I shall always remember was passed
in Pittsburgh late in January, 1916. ^The occasion
was an annual dinner of the Veteran Employees*
Association of the Westinghouse Electric and Man-
ufacturing Company, to whose membership those
persons are eligible who have been in the Company's
employ for twenty years or longer. Several hundred
diners, including a small group of guests at the
speakers' table, sat down together, and a more im-
pressive gathering I never attended. The strong,
intelligent, and interested faces, the manly and
mutually courteous bearing of these men of the
bench and the machine shop, conveyed the finest
of lessons in true American democracy ; and the
speeches which followed the clearing of the tables
told a yet more eloquent story, for they explained
what had held this body of workers at their posts
so many years in an era of fitful change. Every
speaker had his contribution, large or small, to add
to the common fund of reminiscence, and every
story had for its central figure one powerful per-
sonality; and the acme was reached when, with
an appropriate introduction, the curtain which
concealed a large object hanging against the wall

A BIG MAN'S HUMAN SIDE 233

in the rear of the hall was drawn aside, and revealed
a square bronze relief portrait of the hero of the
evening, George Westinghouse.

It was the work of the eminent sculptor, Lorado
Taft, and contributed by the Association as a gift
from its members to the Company they had served
so long, to be hung in the main passageway of the
mammoth building at East Pittsburgh, where every
one could see it daily in going to and from his work.
It represented the founder in the attitude he always
preferred in the rare instances when he had con-
sented to pose for a picture : seated in an armchair,
his hands grasping the arms, his face full to the front,
and his eyes aimed straight into those of his vis-a-vis,
as if he had paused only for the moment in passing,
and was preparing to rise and move on again as soon
as released. It was the George Westinghouse of
rapid action whom they all knew in life — earnest,
tense, direct, aggressive, willful, forward-looking,
regardless of obstacles, contemptuous of leisure,
unsparing of self. Nature had written in that face
the faults as well as the virtues of the soul behind it.
The speeches of the evening had been equally impar-
tial in their reflection of both. It was an experience
meeting, not a mere council of eulogy. But when
the whims and foibles, the eccentricities and incon-
sistencies of the lost leader were touched upon, it
was always in the genial spirit of real affection, and
the balance cast between his triumphs and his failures
left nothing to be desired by his best lover. A finer
tribute of loyalty to one who was no longer where
he could respond to it is impossible to imagine.

234 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

Nor was this sentiment reserved simply for public
display. Wherever I have gone among the officers
and men of the Westinghouse companies, I have
found the same attitude toward their late chief on
the part of those who ever came into personal con-
tact with him, no matter how slightly ; and the air
of Pittsburgh is surcharged today with Westing-
house legends and traditions, of which I cannot at-
tempt to give more than a passing hint.

Though modest and simple in manner, and friendly
in his mode of approach to even the humblest of his
employees, able to call a multitude of them by their
given names, and everywhere known among them
as "the Boss" or "the Old Man", not one would
have ventured upon an unbecoming familiarity
with him. Nature had stamped him with a dignity
which made even the suggestion of such a thing
impossible ; yet there was not a man who was afraid
to come to him frankly when there was something
that needed saying. It might be to meet a rebuff
at the outset, but justice was sure to come later.

Tucked in among the works at East Pittsburgh
stood for some years an unpretentious den known
as "the Old Man's shop." To it Westinghouse
would repair when he came to the Works with an
idea in mind to which he wished to give his undivided
attention for a while. Thirty or forty mechanics
and draftsmen were within speaking distance, ready
at his call to drop whatever they were at and proceed
to the development of his latest conceit. It made
no difference where he was — in New York or
Washington, or up in the Berkshire Hills, or traveling

A BIG MAN'S HUMAN SIDE 235

in his " movie home", the private car, Glen Eyre -
his secretary was at his elbow ; and when a thought
of apparent value occurred to him, he either dictated
an outline of it, or sat down and made a sketch to
mail to his experimental laboratory from that next
stopping-place, preceding this if possible with full
instructions by long-distance telephone, directly
to the foreman whom he intrusted with the trans-
lation of the theory into solid metal. Many
amusing stories are told of this habit. "If Mr.
Westinghouse," said one of his foremen the other day,
"telephoned that a certain minor part was to be one
sixteenth of an inch in diameter, and on his arrival
he found it one eighth of an inch, he would send for
the man responsible for tampering with his orders,
and demand his reasons. If they were insufficient,
the man received on the spot some candid admoni-
tions about doing what he was told, and later per-
haps a bit of discipline ; but if he made out a good
case by showing that his change was wise, he was
equally likely to be marked for promotion."

A tireless and rapid worker himself, Westing-
house found it difficult to understand any different
habit on the part of a subordinate. He was chary
of direct praise, and sometimes when a man had
accomplished what would generally be considered
a wonderful feat, he would show no appreciation of
the effort. One day he sent a hurry order of some
magnitude to a foreman who, anxious to make a
record, set to work at it instantly with a gang of
picked men. For two days and two nights they
labored without rest and almost without food.

236 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

Westinghouse turned up before the job was quite
complete and wanted to know how far they had got
with it. The foreman, with a thrill of pride, showed
him the almost finished machine. His only comment
was a whimsical : " Is that all you've done !"

In spite of this outward attitude, he was inwardly
most appreciative of faithful and efficient service.
To others than the man immediately concerned, he
was generous in awarding commendation where
deserved, and his habit in this respect was felt by
some of his older associates to have been overdone
in favor of certain newcomers in his organizations
before there had been a real test of their merits.

Of a skilled mechanician who was one of his main-
stays for years, he once demanded :

"Miller, why are you always so slow about getting
out any job I order? Why can't you be quick as
Herr is?"

And of Mr. Herr, the next time they met : "Herr,
why on earth can't you take example from Miller,
and do things promptly?"

Soon afterward, the two men chanced to come
together on something, and Miller asked :

"What is it you have been doing for the Boss,
Mr. Herr, that makes him always tell me how much
quicker you are in your work than I am?"

"Why, Miller," answered Herr, "that was the
very question I was going to put to you!"

On one occasion Herr got the better of these
speeding-up methods, but with a highly character-
istic sequel. He had just come home from a busi-
ness trip and found awaiting him a message from

A BIG MAN'S HUMAN SIDE 237

his chief, who also had been out of town, telling him
to have a certain casting made which was needed
for immediate use at the Switch and Signal shops.
It was Saturday night, but Herr lost no time in
opening communication with one of the foremen
at the Air-Brake Works and asking him whether he
could not call a few men together and put this job
through. The foreman did so, and bright and early
on Sunday morning Herr hastened to join them at
the Works.

"Sam," he inquired, "how far along have you got
with that casting?"

"It's done," answered the foreman, "but it's
.mighty hot still."

"Never mind that. Have you a team that you
can hitch up at once?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then carry the casting down to the Switch and
Signal shops."

The foreman obeyed. A few minutes later West-
inghouse appeared.

"Herr," said he, "did you get my message?"

"I did."

"When are you going to pour that casting?"

"It's poured already."

"Ha ! How soon can you get it out?"

"It's out."

"Is that so? Where is it?"

"At the Switch and Signal shop."

The speechlessness with which Westinghouse was
smitten for perhaps two seconds, betrayed the depth
of his astonishment; but as usual he expressed no

238 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

surprise, and bolting forthwith for the road, he
called back over his shoulder :

"Well, I'll go right down there myself and hustle
those fellows up!"

Among his other strictly human traits, Westing-
house would occasionally act on first impulse, and
not with the wisdom which is born of careful con-
sideration. He was, however, quite as quick to
repent as to act, when he saw he was in error. A
foreman who, though they had always been the best
of friends, happened to cross his path in one of his
impulsive moments, received a severe rating for
having failed to perform some practical impossi-
bility. The rebuke itself was hard enough to bear,
but might have been overlooked if it had not been
hurled at the man in the presence of a number of
his underlings — a circumstance which was liable,
in his judgment, to be fatal to his authority. He
sought his employer a few minutes later, and began,
with respect in his manner but repressed wrath in
his voice :

"I think the time has come, Mr. Westinghouse,
when we must part company. I can't rest quiet
under such humiliation as you put upon me this
morning. I am not obliged to, and I won't!"

Westinghouse looked up from his writing with
an air of good-humored deprecation.

"Oh, come now!" he pleaded. "Remember that
I am only human. When things go wrong, I am
apt to blow off my feelings at the first person that
gets in the way. The next time you see that I am
in a bad temper, just hurry out of my reach. If I

A BIG MAN'S HUMAN SIDE 239

try to follow you up, don't pay any attention to me,
but keep right on."

Another foreman who usually was noted for
minding his own business came to Westinghouse
one day and stated his suspicions, with the specific
facts which had aroused them, that certain officers
of one of his companies in whom Westinghouse had
till then felt the utmost confidence, were engaged
in systematic graft. Westinghouse indignantly re-
fused to listen to the charges, and his informant went
away with a sense of having blundered, and given
offense rather than assistance to the chief. Not
very long thereafter, Westinghouse himself stumbled
upon proofs which left him no alternative but to
realize the truth, and he promptly dismissed the
guilty men from office. Afterward he sought the
loyal foreman and reproached him for not having
insisted at first upon making the case clear.

"But, Mr. Westinghouse," protested the man,
"I said all I could, and you wouldn't listen to me."

"Why on earth didn't you make me listen?"
exclaimed Westinghouse, and then laughed in spite
of himself.

Coming into the Machine Works one morning
with a bundle of papers in his hand, Westinghouse
summoned Miller to his workroom. He had thought
out something new on a line with which his mind
had been busy since childhood, the invention of a
perfect rotary engine. The present scheme was
more elaborate than anything he had ever proposed
before, involving an extraordinary internal arrange-
ment with fans and other unusual accessories. At

240 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

his request Miller gave a thorough examination to
the drawings and specifications for the new device.

"I want a model made like that," said the in-
ventor.

"Do you realize what you are ordering, Mr.
Westinghouse ? " asked Miller. "It will cost a
small fortune to build such a model."

"Never mind, I want it done."

"But the thing won't work in any event as you
expect it to."

"I know what I want. Go ahead and make it."

Accordingly the model was made, at a large ex-
pense. It did not take Westinghouse ten minutes
to see that Miller's warning of its uselessness had
been correct.

"Mr. Westinghouse," said Miller, "I hated to
see you throw your money into the ditch like
that."

"Oh," answered Westinghouse cheerfully, "it
wasn't thrown away. Think how many men it
kept employed ; and besides, it is one more step
toward ultimate success."

As has been indicated, Westinghouse was a strong
believer in the virtue of having his own way. He
had no liking for advice ; he preferred to follow
his instincts and issue his commands accordingly.
There were a certain few men, however, who had
made a mark in the world for their brilliancy of
achievement on whose simple dicta he was some-
times ready to hazard a large stake. One of these,
an English physicist of great renown, had demon-
strated, through the process of reasoning, that the

A BIG MAN'S HUMAN SIDE 241

extraction of heat from the atmosphere for the pur-
pose of developing power was a theoretical possi-
bility, and had in a general way indicated the method
and type of machines that would be required in the
process. He, however, stated that this apparatus
would have to be so cumbersome and expensive as
to make the scheme of no practical value. West-
inghouse accepted the scientific basis as sound,
but disagreed with respect to the impossibility of
reducing it to practice. A comprehensive series
of futile experiments, during which many ingenious
devices were developed and constructed, compelled
him to admit reluctantly that it was a tougher prob-
lem than he had anticipated, and he finally conceded
that his scientific friend was right, in both premises
and conclusions.

Westinghouse was so expert a practical mechanic
that when he laid his hand actually to a bit of con-
struction the men who worked near him used to
say with a chuckle: "The Boss is on the job; all
we have to do is to pass him the tools." In the
drafting rooms he had a trick of dropping down at
any time in front of a desk and busying himself
with whatever drawings lay on its surface. Some-
times he would reach out his right hand, and, with-
out lifting his eyes from the paper before him, utter
the single word: "Pencil!" The draftsman next
him would place a pencil in the outstretched ringers,
and with this he would amend the drawing in some
particular or outline a new one very rapidly, pausing
only when he discovered that he had made a mark
which he had better change. Then, still without

242 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

the slightest diversion of the eyes, out would come
the hand again, and with it the single word : "Rub-
ber!" Into the hand would go the rubber as the
pencil had gone a moment earlier, and he would
erase the rejected line, brush away the dust with
his little finger, and resume drawing in a silence as
profound as before.

It was a standing joke among his lieutenants
that they never could guess "where the Old Man
was going to break out next/' One who was attend-
ing to some business in Denver suddenly received,
out of a clear sky, a telegram ordering him to go to
Idaho and hunt up a certain person, and referring
him, by way of explanation, to an article published
in the latest issue of a well-known weekly news-
paper. This proved to be a story about a wonderful
agricultural discovery recently made. An Idaho
farmer, it said, having gone to the Yukon country
on a hunt for gold, had accidentally stumbled there
upon a field of wheat which, for height of stalk and
fullness of head, excelled anything he had ever seen
or heard of. He carried away some of it, and,
after his return to Idaho, planted the kernels ;
their yield the next season was most abundant,
and absolutely true to type. His discovery, the
story concluded, had caused great excitement
among the Northwestern farmers, who were flock-
ing to his ranch and buying seed of him at one
dollar a pound.

The recipient of the telegram went to Idaho at
once, hunted up the man, and found him, as de-
scribed, doing a thriving business. Later com-

A BIG MAN'S HUMAN SIDE 243

munications from Westinghouse revealed the fact
that he had happened to read the article, and been
suddenly struck with a fancy for buying the farmer's
entire stock of seed, to use for the rapid replenish-
ment of the American wheat supply. His idea was
that this might aid to solve one of the food problems
of our poor by making it possible presently to reduce
the price of bread.

All who have worked under him agree as to the
marvelous gift he had for inspiring his subordinates.
This was due not only to his personal magnetism,
but to his habit of giving every one a chance. He
used to take heavy contracts for things that would
need a large amount of development work, and then
call upon his experts to turn them out ; and every
man knew what it would mean to make a success
of the task. Indeed, the reason Westinghouse was
always in the lead among the inventors of his genera-
tion was that he commanded the talents and the
best efforts of many able young men to supplement
his own. Toward the group upon whom he specially
leaned he had as strong a sense of loyalty as they had
toward him. At times when the money market
was tight he was obliged to limit their cash salaries
to dimensions which he frankly said were insufficient,
but he would make it up to them by generous gifts
of stock.

He had a large way of doing everything. Frank
H. Taylor, who in February, 1902, was promoted
to be second vice-president of the Electric & Manu-
facturing Company, preserves, as if it were a patent
of nobility, a very short letter he received at that

244 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

time from Westinghouse, stating what would be ex-
pected of him. "The duties of the second vice-
president," ran the letter -

" will be general, comprehending the important con-
tract relations of the company, the sale of the com-
pany's products, and general supervision of the
company's properties and operations, wherever
situated. He will also assume final responsibility,
subject to the president, for the conduct of the
general offices, and the purchasing, store and cost
departments ; he will advise with the other officers
with respect to the duties assigned to them, and
will participate in and preside at the meetings of
the heads of the various branches of the company's
business."

"Here," said Mr. Taylor, in showing me the
letter, "are ten lines of typewriting, clearly turning
over to my management a property of, say, sixty
million dollars in value — an example of simplicity
and directness of thought and expression which it
would be hard to match."

Nikola Tesla, who perfected his inventions in
alternating-current apparatus while associated with
George Westinghouse and receiving his financial
support, once publicly paid his patron this cordial
tribute : "He is one of those few men who conscien-
tiously respect intellectual property, and who ac-
quire their right to use inventions by fair and equi-
table means. . . . Had other industrial firms and
manufacturers been as just and liberal as Mr. West-
inghouse, I should have had many more of my in-
ventions in use than I now have."

The same sort of testimony is heard wherever

A BIG MAN'S HUMAN SIDE 245

one goes. Hugh Rodman, for instance, founder
and head of the Rodman Chemical Company of
East Pittsburgh, described to me his experience in
these words :

"For several years I was research engineer for
the Machine Company, making such investigations
as Mr. Westinghouse or the management directed,
and, as a matter of course, turning over the results
to the company. One investigation carried me to
the case-hardening department, where, after con-
siderable work, I developed patentable processes
and materials which apparently had commercial
value apart from the company's ordinary activities.
These I reported as usual, and the question was
raised as to who properly owned them. I held that,
as the company was not interested in chemical
manufacturing, it should retain only a working right
to the processes, leaving me to patent them for my
own benefit in other respects. The company argued
that, its money and equipment having been used,
the processes belonged to it. We appealed to Mr.
Westinghouse as arbitrator. His decision was that,
though the company might legally maintain its
right to the inventions, he would make no move to
do so, and he not only turned over to me the entire
rights in the inventions, but offered me enough
capital to erect and run a small factory, of which he
left me in full control. I feel great satisfaction in
adding that the investment proved worth while,
and in bearing this witness to his fine generosity!"

CHAPTER XVIII
"THE OLD MAN" AND His EMPLOYEES

WHEN George Westinghouse established himself
in business as a manufacturer of air brakes, in Feb-
ruary, 1870, he had a rather primitive establishment.
The first mechanic he hired was Christopher Horrocks,
who at this writing is still in active service at the
Air Brake Works in Wilmerding, as keenly interested
in his duties and as full of enthusiasm as he ever was.
When he came in, the factory was near the corner of
Liberty Avenue and Twenty-fifth Street, in a build-
ing of which the main walls are standing today ;
it was then, he says, unfinished, the brickwork being
up but neither window-framing nor doors being in
place. The equipment consisted of "a steam engine
about the size of a kitchen chair, a boiler two sheets
in length, and a section of shafting." One man —
Ralph Baggaley, whose acquaintance we have al-
ready made — constituted the entire office force ;
another, named Welsh, combined the functions of
time-keeper, foreman, and superintendent ; and Hor-
rocks was the "horny-fisted son of toil" who did the
work requiring brawn and muscle.

By degrees other men were brought in, till the shop
began to assume a very busy air. Young Westing-
house was so approachable and pleasant-mannered

"THE OLD MAN" AND HIS EMPLOYEES 247

as to command the most cordial liking from his little
staff. He also introduced several innovations which
naturally heightened this feeling. After his return
from his first visit to England, for instance, he an-
nounced that work would be suspended every Satur-
day at noon, so that the men could have a half-holiday
to enjoy as they pleased without trespassing upon
their Sunday rest. It was the first move of that kind
that had ever been made in Pittsburgh, and, so far
as known, in the United States, and it proved not
only popular but in a larger sense profitable, for it
gave the new shop a unique distinction among the
local industries. Meanwhile, in the autumn of the
first year, he had invited the entire force, by that
time embracing fifteen men, to dine with him at one
of the city hotels on Thanksgiving day. The dinner
was in the interest of sociability and mutual under-
standing, and was repeated annually till it became
impracticable on account of increasing numbers ;
as a substitute, the practice was adopted of presenting
every employee, great or small, with a turkey to
crown his Thanksgiving dinner with his family.

This custom continued for more than thirty years ;
but the pay roll meanwhile had swelled steadily till
the fowls to be given away exceeded a dozen tons in
weight, and were brought to the distributing point
in big refrigerator cars. Also, there had become
connected with the Works not merely the generation
they started with, but its successor ; and, on the per
capita basis of allotment, several turkeys were liable
to find their way into a single family, while another,
perhaps larger, would get only one. A certain father,

248 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

for example, had seven unmarried sons working with
him in the Air Brake shops, and to that household
went eight turkeys, though only one or two could be
put to beneficial use. From such lavishness sprang
up a habit, in large families, of resorting to some
device like a shooting-match, a rafHe, or a game of
cards, for disposing of their surplus poultry. At the
suggestion of John F. Miller, then secretary of the
Company but now its president, Mr. Westinghouse
decided to call a halt on what was becoming a serious
abuse, and to substitute for it a pension system, for
which the ten thousand dollars or thereabout that
had been annually spent on turkeys, if suitably
capitalized, would make a very comfortable nucleus.
The principal sum thus evolved, amounting to one
hundred and ten thousand dollars, was set aside and
so invested as to produce a regular annual income,
from which were paid pensions, ranging from twenty
to one hundred dollars a month, to all employees
who had rendered long and faithful service and be-
come disabled, or reached the age of retirement
- voluntary at sixty-five years, or compulsory at
seventy. The widows, children, and other dependent
relatives of the pensioners were placed on the roll
at rates that varied according to specified conditions.
The company made itself responsible for the pension
fund and for any deficiencies of income that might
occur.

Prior to the introduction of the pension system,
there was established a relief department, which,
though the company assumed the cost of foundation
and maintenance, and held the principal fund in

"THE OLD MAN" AND HIS EMPLOYEES 249

trust and paid interest on it, was relieved of all taint
of gratuity by a roll of supporting membership, like
a mutual insurance association. Both fees and bene-
fits were graded according to the wages or salaries
of the members, and varied from a fee of fifty cents
a month, earning benefits of $5 a week for a disabled
member, to a monthly fee of $1.50 with a weekly
benefit of $15 ; and on the death of any member, of
whatever class, $150 was paid to his heirs. Medical
examinations were made, and attendance in case of
accident furnished, free of charge to the members,
by a physician or surgeon at the headquarters of
the department. These advantages were later dupli-
cated in the main by the Electric and Manufacturing
Company, but the Air Brake Company has enlarged
and liberalized them by degrees till in many respects
they are today unique in the industrial world.

At all the Westinghouse works, the ideal kept con-
stantly in view was cooperation. The desire of the
founder, as manifested in such ways as I have just
been describing, was to have every person connected
with one of his companies, whether as officer, agent,
or employee, feel that he was part of the concern,
that its interests were his interests, and that its
personnel was one big family. To that end every
proper encouragement was given to the workmen
to organize clubs and societies among themselves
for the promotion of good fellowship and the per-
petuation of the memories of old times. The effect
of such a policy shows itself in the pride with which
the older men in the works refer to their long connec-
tion with their Company, much as so many veteran

250 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

servants of the Government point to the stars and
chevrons they wear. It was in pursuance of this
cooperative ideal not less than for the moral and
physical good to be derived from them, that the
Westinghouse companies have spent large sums on
Christian Association and Welfare buildings, and
presented them to the communities adjacent to their
works, so that the employees and their families could
have facilities fof wholesome recreation out of
working hours.

Another ambition entertained by George Westing-
house was to educate his own people, as far as prac-
ticable, for their duties under him, instead of leaving
them to pick up their technical instruction hap-
hazard. More has been done in this direction by
the Electric and Manufacturing Company and the
Machine Company than by any other of the Westing-
house corporations — doubtless because the work
there required more systematically trained faculties.
In East Pittsburgh is maintained a technical night
school which offers, at a nominal expense, a very
good drill in the fundamentals of mathematics, en-
gineering, shop practice, and mechanical work, to
any youth who is unable to study in the daytime ;
the boys who attend it fraternize like members of a
college class, and get a great deal of social enjoyment
as well as mental stimulation out of their connection
with it. The Machine Company supports an ap-
prenticeship course for male pupils sixteen years of
age or older. The apprentices are required to sign
articles for a certain number of years, are paid at a
modest rate for every hour they work, and at the

"THE OLD MAN" AND HIS EMPLOYEES 251

close of a successful course receive a present of $100.
Mr. C. R. Dooley, an alumnus of a Western univer-
sity, with a technical education and a strong bent
for teaching and social enterprises, makes an annual
tour of the colleges of the country, picking up mem-
bers of their graduating classes who have a taste for
some line of engineering, and who seem to offer
promising material for the Westinghouse working
corps. If they are taken on, he keeps in close touch
with them through the medium of a young men's
club of which he is an active manager.

Nor are the girls in the works overlooked in the
general welfare scheme. They have a school where,
for a few dollars a year, they can put in their after-
noons and evenings studying the commercial branches
or stenography, typewriting, cooking, sewing, house-
hold art, or music. Though not an advertised cham-
pion of the cause commonly known as "women's
rights", Westinghouse always had strongly at heart
the interests of the women in his employ, aiming not
only to give every one of them her chance, but seeing
to it that she had everything within reason done for
her health and comfort. When he built his works
at East Pittsburgh, almost the first thing he noticed
in inspecting their outside appearance was the ab-
sence of proper sidewalks and overhead protection.
"This won't do," said he. "We employ a great
many women, and when it storms they will be ex-
posed to the rain in their thin dresses, or walk in
unprotected shoes from the doors to the car-tracks.
They will catch cold, and if any harm comes to them
it will be our fault. We must have a viaduct." So,

252 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

although the buildings had already cost so much
that he was under sharp criticism from his shorter-
sighted stockholders, a fine steel and concrete viaduct
went up without delay ; and many a young woman
undoubtedly owes her immunity from illness to his
thoughtfulness.

Perhaps the most characteristic provision made
for the girls is the lunch-room at the Electric and
Manufacturing Works, where they can take their
noon meal under restful and economical conditions.
It stands at the end of a spacious aisle, and contains
thirty-five tables with accommodations for more
than a thousand women. The tables are neatly
covered with enameled oilcloth, and hot coffee,
sugar, and cream are contributed by the Company,
together with two maid-servants to keep the room
in order, heat the coffee, wash the dishes, etc. What
gives it its distinctive Westinghouse touch is the way
the work of attendance is methodized so that the
two maids can do it all without difficulty. The coffee
is heated in fifteen-gallon urns, and carried to the
tables on a truck specially designed for the purpose,
provided with pneumatic tires and springs to prevent
breaking or chipping the chinaware ; and when the
lunchers disperse the dishes go into a machine
operated by a motor and controlled by one of the
maids, which washes and dries them automatically.

The fact that the works of the Air Brake Company,
the Union Switch and Signal Company, the Electric
and Manufacturing Company, and the Machine
Company, though in separate boroughs, practically
adjoin one another along a line of railroad that runs

"THE OLD MAN" AND HIS EMPLOYEES 253

through Turtle Creek Valley, not only gives them a
community of interest in many matters, but facili-
tates official inspection, encourages the social min-
gling of the employees, and fosters the adoption by one
company of the advanced ideas of another as soon
as they have proved their worth by experiment. As
a result, not infrequently a capable workman in one
of the Westinghouse plants has been asked by his
neighbors to accept office as burgess or councilor
and has made a most creditable public record.

Naturally, where fifty thousand men and women
are employed, more than half the number at some
specialized form of skilled industry, the eternal labor
question has not held itself aloof. Agitators have
from time to time tried to stir up strife between
managers and men, but with little effect. It was
the consistent policy of George Westinghouse to
treat with his own workmen, neither interfering in
the affairs of other employers nor himself submitting
to any dictation from without. His general attitude
with regard to the important question of organized
labor is a matter of record. Statements have been
erroneously made that he opposed it. He recognized
the absolute right of men to form associations for
protective and beneficial purposes, holding strongly,
however, to the view that there should be no inter-
ference with the rights of those who were not thus
associated. This position was well reflected in the
correspondence he had with Samuel Gompers in
April, 1903. Mr. Gompers wrote that he had been
informed that the Westinghouse interests were op-
posed to union labor. Mr. Westinghouse answered

254 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

that all the managers of his companies were earnestly
striving to better existing conditions and always
ready to lend a helping hand ; adding :

'They are a unit with me in wishing that our
employees should not join such organizations as
would render them liable to be involved in agitations
or disputes which have no reference to their work or
their employment with the Westinghouse Companies.
All workmen are guaranteed the same rights and
privileges with us, whether they are affiliated with
organized labor or not."

He firmly believed that all the advantages, with
practically none of the drawbacks that go with the
ordinary labor unions, could be realized by a union
formed of the employees of each manufacturing
industry without affiliation with other similar or-
ganizations. This, in effect, is the condition existing
at the Air Brake Works. All the virtues of what is
called " collective bargaining" are available for the
benefit of its employees, and the Company, on its
part, is enabled to take broader views and adopt
more liberal policies than if it were hampered by
outside influences having no real knowledge of the
business or conditions surrounding it.

In short, by maintaining a high standard of wages,
encouraging the operatives to make this continuously
possible by turning out the finest quality of products
in the market, and providing for the welfare of the
old and infirm workmen, Westinghouse avoided any
serious labor trouble. As we have already seen,
when financial clouds hung over him as head of a
great company, his employees hastened to the rescue

''THE OLD MAN" AND HIS EMPLOYEES 255

in a spirit that reflected equal credit upon them and
him. No man who applied for work had ever been
questioned as to his membership of a trade union,
a church, or a political party, and none had been dis-
charged except for cause, or — as happened in a few
instances for a brief period -- because business was
too dull to permit of carrying the maximum force.
Even here, however, "the Old Man's*' kindness of
heart occasionally played a part at odds with his
selfish advantage. Such was the case when the year
1896, opening with slack prospects, found the Electric
and Manufacturing Company's works so] overmanned
that, in the interest of prudence, four or five hundred
laborers were likely to be laid off in midwinter.
Westinghouse sent for one of his lieutenants and in-
quired into the matter. When he saw how serious
the situation was, he said :

" I am going away for a while, but I can't leave till
I have made some arrangement for continuing those
men at work, at least till the cold weather is over.
Haven't we anything in the shops that needs over-
hauling?"

"No, sir/' answered the man, "not a thing that
I know of now."

"What has become of that load of stuff we put
into the loft some time ago to get it out of the way ? "

"It is there still, and it's practically all scrap.
There's nothing in the lot that we could possibly
make use of by repairing it."

"Well, never mind, get it down and do something
to it-- I don't care much what, as long as these
fellows are employed. If that won't answer, bring

256 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

out some billets and have them shaped into squares
or hexagons."

"But, Mr. Westinghouse, it would mean a tre-
mendous waste."

"No, it wouldn't. Nothing will be wasted that
keeps the wives and children of all these men from
suffering this winter. Do as I tell you."

And his orders were obeyed, with the result
that hundreds of workmen remained on the pay roll
through the inclement season with nothing but
humanity as an excuse for keeping them there.

Again, in 1899, about a dozen faithful employees
of the Air Brake Company attained the age of seventy
just before they had finished the full twenty years'
service required to entitle them to pensions. Ac-
cording to its strict letter, the rule must have been
enforced against them on the 9th of September, and
they would have lost their pensions though too old
to remain in the Company's service or to obtain
work elsewhere. When, almost at the last moment,
Mr. Westinghouse learned of their plight, he at once
called the directors together, and, by the force of his
personal influence, procured an amendment to the
regulations postponing till the 1st of October the
date when the exclusion rule must take effect.

A like trait manifested itself in other ways. Once
he descended with such vigor upon a new mechanic
who had spoiled a minor casting that the offender,
who had' not yet had a chance to "measure the Old
Man up", was nervously unstrung. A more ex-
perienced associate consoled him by saying: "Oh,
the Boss doesn't really mean much by that. The

"THE OLD MAN" AND HIS EMPLOYEES 257

next time he starts to roast you, just tell him your
wife is sick." It was a familiar proverb at the works
that any tale of distress among his employees aroused
the sympathy of Westinghouse at once, and changed
his severity to gentleness.

He had become interested in a copper mine in
Arizona, when a neighboring customs officer, smitten
with a spasm of superserviceable zeal, swooped down
upon the property and arrested about thirty of the
unnaturalized Mexican miners on a groundless charge,
threw them into a local jail in midsummer, and began
a criminal prosecution against their employer. As
soon as the news reached Westinghouse that the
unfortunates were suffering maltreatment, he ignored
all considerations of his own possible loss, and con-
centrated his entire attention on the fate of his men,
telegraphing his representative on the ground to bail
them out at any cost and see that no further harm
came to them. The case was eventually dropped by
the Government, but not till Westinghouse had spent
a great deal of money in undoing the effect of this
act of official stupidity.

With all his generosity of spirit, he could not forgive
ingratitude. A poor Hungarian who had recently
come to the works and could speak almost no English
was suffering from an ulcerated tooth which grew
steadily worse till the doctor told him he could get
no relief except from a serious operation. The man
was in despair. He could not afford the sacrifice of
wages which would be involved in his taking time off
to go to a hospital, and he feared that, with his ig-
norance of our language, he might not be able to

258 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

find another place if he lost this one. Westinghouse,
as soon as his case was made known, ordered that he
be sent to a hospital and his wages paid him during
his absence, and also gave him a sum of money to
meet any unforeseen expense to which he might be
put before his recovery.

On the strength of this incident, one of the higher
paid employees, an Austrian who had grown homesick,
was moved to play upon the sympathies of so kind
a patron, and worked up a mock case of stomalgia,
for which a sea voyage and a visit to a certain
specialist in Austria were said to hold forth the only
hope of a cure. Down went Westinghouse's hand
into his pocket and the man was sent abroad by the
next available steamer. After a pleasant sojourn
at his old home he returned, and in an expansive
mood boasted to some of his boon companions how
he had "played it on the Old Man." The story
reached Westinghouse's ears and the swindler was
packed off with incredible speed. As his position
in the works was one that required a peculiar training,
he was unable to find other employment without a
certificate of merit, but when it came to granting
any kind of concession he found the soft heart of his
employer turned as hard as flint.

CHAPTER XIX
A TRIO OF HOMES

IN the matter of homes George Westinghouse was
more than commonly favored, having three that
were permanent and two that were movable. In the
permanent homes, at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
Lenox, Massachusetts, and Washington, D. C., his
wife was the presiding genius, and her word there
was law. Of the temporary homes, one was a hotel
in New York City, liable to change from year to
year ; the other was a private railway car called
the Glen Eyre, with commodious sleeping quarters,
dining room, kitchen, and office. Wherever he
might be, this was always held in readiness for his
occupancy, with his secretary and other companions,
and, attached to the most convenient train, it bore
him hither and yon without interruption of any busi-
ness he happened to have in hand at the time.

As we have already seen, his house on the eastern
outskirts of Pittsburgh was bought in 1871. It was
built of brick, in the villa style of architecture, with
the square tower and Mansard roof then so popular,
and stood in the midst of an attractive plot of ground
on a slight eminence close to the local railway station,
so that he had only a few minutes* walk to reach the
train which bore him daily into the city. To avoid

260 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

a mere roundabout route in descending to the leve*
on which the tracks ran, he laid out a cross-path from
the house door to the corner of the lawn, and built
a small tunnel from that point to the station. To
this estate Mrs. Westinghouse had given the name
Solitude, because that seemed most appropriate
to the retreat where nightly her husband could sepa-
rate himself from the noise and bustle of the rushing
world in which he passed his days. When they first
moved into the house they had not the means to
furnish all of it, so the drawing-room was left as it
was, and a smaller room on the opposite side of the
entrance hall was fitted for social and family pur-
poses. Later, as their circumstances improved,
they had the whole house refurnished with some
elaborateness, besides extending it to the rear so as
to add a spacious and high-ceiled dining room.
Westinghouse's favorite place for sitting with his
friends during the winter season was a square hall a
little back from the main entrance, flanked by an
angular staircase and containing an open fireplace.
In the warm weather he enjoyed spending his eve-
nings on the porch. He was always a happy host,
and rarely a day passed when a few of his friends —
most frequently his business associates and their
wives — did not dine with him. When some es-
pecially perplexing question was occupying his mind,
he might slip away from the party after dinner and
seek a little library upstairs where he could be quiet
and concentrate his thoughts for a while. If he and
his guests had become involved in a discussion which
could be illuminated by a diagram, he would call

A TRIO OF HOMES 261

them into the billiard room and spread his papers
on the green baize table, over which the group would
bend with their heads close together, sometimes for
an hour or more.

When I was at Solitude early in 1915, the house
stood just as he and his wife had left it, except that
it had been stripped of most of the finer furniture,
and the bric-a-brac and curios with which they had
filled it as souvenirs of their repeated trips to the old
world. The walls sent back echoes of every footstep,
and there was a ghostly suggestion as one walked
through it and came suddenly upon a huge photo-
graph of Mr. and Mrs. Westinghouse as they ap-
peared during their first sojourn in London. The
two figures were about one quarter life-size, and the
husband's face, with its heavy crown of dark hair
and its drooping mustache, appeared in profile,
looking down at his wife, who was seated in front
of him with her full face turned to the observer. The
resemblance of the George Westinghouse of the '70*5
to the George Westinghouse of forty years later was
so strong as to be fairly haunting. Another potent
reminder of him was to be found in the festoons of
webbing-sheathed wires which followed the lines of
the entry ceiling and mounted to the second story ;
for, when he had the house equipped for electric
lighting, he forbade the mechanics to cut into the
woodwork, insisting on having the wires left free so
that he could make any changes he wished when he
believed he had hit upon a new idea. Thus he tested
by actual experience every suggestion in the line of
lighting that came into his mind.

262 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

At one side of the house was a vegetable garden,
and in front were Mrs. Westinghouse's flower beds
and a winding grape trellis. At the rear was a stable,
in the cellar of which, as the premises were gradually
improved, were placed the lighting and heating
plants, the wires and pipes being conducted to the
house through a subway large enough for a man to
walk in. The construction of this underground pas-
sage furnished a lively sensation for the Pittsburgh
newspapers, which ventured all kinds of guesses as
to its purpose. By that time Westinghouse had
become so prominent a figure locally that some of the
press commentators, knowing his distaste for ordinary
publicity, felt sure he was taking this means of making
his way back and forth without observation while
engaged on some new invention.

It was at Solitude that the natural gas experi-
ment was made, as described in an earlier chapter.
It was here, also, that many distinguished guests
from abroad were entertained when attracted to
Pittsburgh by what they had heard of the wonderful
system of administration in its mills and shops.
Conspicuous among them were Prince Albert, now
King of the Belgians, and Lord Kelvin, between
whom and Westinghouse had sprung up a very warm
friendship, having its origin in their community of
tastes and interests.

The Massachusetts home was not acquired till
some time in the '8o's, when Mrs. Westinghouse,
whose health had for some time been not of the best,
was advised by her physicians to try the effect of
mountain air, and with her husband passed a large

A TRIO OF HOMES 263

part of one season in the heart of the Berkshire Hills.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Westinghouse became fascinated
with the country about Lenox, and, after giving it a
fair trial, Mrs. Westinghouse expressed a wish that
they had a country home in such a place where she
could spend her summers, living most of the time in
the open air and directing the improvement and care
of the grounds. They looked together over a num-
ber of eligible sites, and presently fixed upon the
Schenck farm, situated in the corner where the towns
of Lenox, Lee, and Stockbridge come together, and
comprising about one hundred acres with a well-
built house already on it. This property they bought
in November, 1887. The next year they bought an
adjoining piece of the Clark farm, containing some
forty-one acres and a number of buildings, and the
year after that another tract of twelve acres from the
Smith estate, bordered for a considerable stretch by
a shore of Laurel Lake. With this they rested for a
while, employing the interval in improving the land
they had purchased and watching for a good op-
portunity to obtain other parcels along the lakeside.
Their chance did not come for ten years, and then a
series of purchases, mostly on the shore, more than
doubled their holdings. Thereafter additions were
made at irregular intervals, till by the end of 1911
this estate, which they had named Erskine Park in
honor of Mrs. Westinghouse's family name, com-
passed a total of nearly six hundred acres. The
Schenck house had been enlarged and made over to
fit the needs of its new owners, and the family had
established themselves there in October, 1890.

264 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

The combination of climate, surroundings, and
occupation proved most beneficial to Mrs. Westing-
house. Always fond of flowers, she came to take an
almost childlike delight in all growing things ; and
here were lawns to be laid out, old trees to be trimmed
or thinned, saplings to be transplanted, and shrub-
bery to be disposed so as to produce certain landscape
effects. The estate must be supplied also with drive-
ways and paths, the slopes would need proper grading,
swamp land would have to be made wholesome, and
dry soil provided with means of water. All this
meant a deal of unskilled labor supplementary to
the initial work of trained engineers and gardening
experts ; the task extended over a series of years,
and Mrs. Westinghouse welcomed the chance it
afforded her to help many poor fellows who lost their
employment by the panic of 1893, and whose families
would have suffered but for some such godsend.

How much good her own share of this work did
her was shown when the improvements had reached
a stage which called for the enclosure of the park,
and a man was summoned from Pittsburgh to take
measurements for a fence. He was somewhat
amused when Mrs. Westinghouse, the semi-invalid
of a few years before, proposed to accompany him
on his walk around the park, so as to advise with him
regarding certain details; but his amusement gave
way to astonishment when she not only made the
circuit without any apparent discomfort, but ac-
tually walked him down, so that he had to stop and
rest before his tour was complete.

One of the least attractive features of the line

A TRIO OF HOMES 265

where the Schenck and Clark farms met was a marshy
tract, studded in part with half-matured willows.
The suggestion that she drain this and carry the water
off in tiles was too purely utilitarian to appeal to her,
and she decided to turn the swamp into a lake, draw-
ing upon Laurel Lake for whatever additional water
was needed, and with a bit of judicious pruning, use
the willow copse as part of a picturesque background
of foliage. As the artificial lake, following with its
boundaries the lines of the water-charged soil, was
narrow in parts, a few bridges were thrown across
the straits. Two of these, at the most exposed points,
were built of marble, while the others, half hidden
among the willows, were of iron, infusing into the
scene, with their weblike construction and their half
concealment among the trees, a Japanese effect.

When it came to running the lines of the paths
and roadways, Mrs. Westinghouse had a most defi-
nite conception of what she wished. The engineers
arrived with their technical instruments, prepared
to do everything themselves ; but she went out every
day and worked with them, directing instead of tak-
ing directions. She preferred a homely device of
rope and pegs to the best brass and glass apparatus
they could bring, and with her own hands she would
hold the end of a rope while the men swung it around
and marked its course with stakes till they had got
every curve just to suit her. Sixty acres of the level
part of the park was devoted to ornamental lawn,
and a considerable area on the upland to a deer
paddock. In the midst of one of the broad stretches
near the lake was built a pavilion, where band con-

266 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

certs were given occasionally on fine summer after-
noons. There were tennis courts close by, also.

A distinguishing mark of Erskine Park was its
system of white carriage drives. They were visible
from the public highway, and never failed to excite
comment from strangers passing the gates. Their
whiteness was due to the finely crushed marble used
for surfacing them. Soon after purchasing the land
for the estate, Mr. Westinghouse selected a site for
a deep well, and started drilling, but at a depth of
five hundred feet ran into a "cap" of marble, of the
same quality as the product of the famous Lee
quarries. With the eye of the ever practical man,
he saw at once the use to which this could be put,
and took a constant satisfaction in the sense that
there never could be any neglect of the upkeep of his
drives without his promptly discovering the blot on
the pure white surface.

A big barn stood near the house when the Schenck
place was bought, and, as it was not required for its
original purposes, a question arose as to its disposal.
One rainy day Mrs. Westinghouse went out to look
it over, and was struck with the idea of turning it
into a recreation-house. Accordingly the mows and
bins were emptied, the lower ground floor — for the
building stood on two levels — was fitted up with
pantry and kitchen appliances, dressing rooms, and
the like, and the entire upper ground floor was cleared
of permanent obstructions and equipped for a gigantic
club or living room, with books and pictures, card
tables and lounging chairs everywhere, and gymnastic
apparatus, a bowling alley and a billiard table so

A TRIO OF HOMES 267

placed as to be least in the way if the floor had to be
cleared for dancing, a reception, or a hunt breakfast.

Against the wall were hung from time to time
numberless framed photographs, many of them bear-
ing the autographs of their subjects or of the artists
who took them, and nearly every one having a story
connected with it. Here were portraits of musicians
and actors, men of letters and doctors in various
sciences with whom the family were on terms of
friendship. Mingled with these were the portraits
of relatives or childhood associates, and one of an
interesting girl in whom George Westinghouse be-
lieved he had discovered a genius, and whom he sent
abroad for a thorough education in music. For per-
fection of workmanship, the amateur photographs
of Albert Kapteyn, a Dutch gentleman, easily bore
off the palm ; their subjects were of the genre order,
but most of them were outdoor views in Holland,
England, Scotland, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland,
and Spain.

On the tops of the bookshelves were grouped a few
of the hunting trophies obtained by the present
George Westinghouse while a lad. He had impor-
tuned his parents for a gun till at last his mother
consented to give him one if he would agree to shoot
only a single specimen of any kind of wild creature.
Under this contract he brought her his birds and
beasts, and she had them mounted by a taxidermist
and added to the collection of family memorials.

Mrs. Westinghouse took the keenest pride in what
she jocosely termed her farming. Live stock was
her special hobby, and she was a regular exhibitor

268 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

at the annual horse show in Lenox. Her farm horses,
which never failed to receive some flattering award,
carried off in one year the first, second, and third
prizes. The walls of her greenhouses bristled with
certificates from the Lenox Horticultural Society,
of honors won by her gardener, Edward J. Norman,
for his displays at the local Florist Show. Her herd
of fine milch cows, varying in number from twenty
to twenty-five, paid their tribute to a dairy built and
equipped on the most modern plans, and run in every
department by electricity. This was for several years
one of the special objects of interest for visitors at
the Park, partly because of the novelty of the me-
chanical devices employed, and partly because the
barnyard was surfaced with the same crushed marble
as was used on the carriage drives, giving the whole
place an air of aggressive cleanliness.

'The Lenox residence," writes an old family
friend, "was Mrs. Westinghouse's idea in every de-
tail, and was the first building in the world, so far
as I know, in which diffused electric lighting was
attempted, the effect being to give the appearance
of daylight, there being no shadows in any room.
The lamps were arranged, throughout the house
and on the piazzas, in a special moulding where the
walls joined the ceilings. There were some fifteen
hundred lamps in all, every one made especially for
Mrs.Westinghouse,aswere also the sockets, switches,
and other appliances. When you reflect that this
took place thirty years ago, you get an idea of the
magnitude of the undertaking. I recall that even
Mr. Westinghouse, in spite of his progressive ideas,

A TRIO OF HOMES 269

opposed his wife in this matter, but she carried out
her plan, with a result much admired and quickly
copied; and as in 1888 electric lighting in private
residences was in its infancy, and the few lamps
were usually hung on the gas fixtures without even
the concealment of the wires, some conception of
the innovation is possible. This was brought home
to me about fifteen years later, when one of the
engineers from the Electric Works in Pittsburgh
came to Erskine Park to report on the electric light
plant. Just before starting back, he asked if he
might go into the house and see the arrangement of
the lights — a surprising request in view of the
progress that had been made in interior electric
lighting since this house was built. He explained
that he was working in the shops when the ap-
paratus was made, that everything was special
because nothing like it had ever been made be-
fore, and no one there could understand how it
was to be used ; so he determined that if he ever
got within a hundred miles of the place he would
seethe results."

The electric energy employed on the estate gener-
ally was supplied from a power house situated in
a retired nook at the north end of the estate. This
was a substantial stone structure, containing a com-
plete steam plant and dynamos for generating current.
A rotary pump operated by an electric motor lifted
from Laurel Lake the water needed for feeding the
artificial lake, and on more than one occasion came
to the rescue when the public water company at
Lenox found itself crippled by some emergency. To

270 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

this establishment, also, Lenox was indebted for the
introduction of electric lighting into the village.

The Westinghouse home in Washington was the
fine brick mansion on the west side of Dupont Circle
built by James G. Elaine when he became Secretary
of State in the Garfield Cabinet, but unused by him,
owing to the assassination of the President and his
own withdrawal for a season from public life. It
was leased for several years to Levi Z. Leiter, the
retired merchant from Chicago, and then passed into
possession of Mrs. Westinghouse. Here the family
lived for a series of winters, taking a lively interest
in the social and benevolent activities of the city,
particularly while the McKinleys were in the White
House. It was in this house that Mrs. Westinghouse
gave a demonstration of her executive ability which
attracted the widest attention.

In the spring of 1899 the American Society of
Mechanical Engineers was to hold a convention in
Washington, and it was the desire of Mr. Westing-
house, as one of the recognized pillars of the organiza-
tion, to entertain his fellow members in some way.
He accordingly issued invitations for a large recep-
tion, which was to give them an opportunity to meet
the chief dignitaries of the Government and the
resident diplomatic corps ; but these were hardly
out before he received a sudden summons abroad
and was obliged to take passage on the next steamer.
The situation was critical, for the signs all forecast
an enormous attendance, and not a move had been
made toward arranging a program or preparing the
house. Mrs. Westinghouse stepped at once into the

A TRIO OF HOMES 271

breach. Perceiving that, capacious as her main floor
was, it could not accommodate such an assemblage
with comfort, she had a ballroom thrown out to cover
the entire garden in the rear, practically doubling
her space. It was built of wood, but elaborately
decorated inside, with an expansive effect produced
by a series of arches ; and so cleverly was its point
of juncture with the main house concealed, that no
one unfamiliar with the premises suspected that it
was merely a temporary structure.

Every detail of her plan was executed under her
personal supervision, and at the head of the receiving
line she welcomed more than three thousand guests
who would not have assumed from her appearance
or manner that such momentous undertakings were
not with her an everyday experience. At her side
stood Rear Admiral Melville, president of the society.
Until that evening he had always cherished a rather
unflattering impression of women as administrators,
especially in emergencies calling for rapid thought
and action on a broad scale ; but he confessed to his
friends after this reception, the largest of the season
in a city of large functions, that he was a convert to
the opposite view.

Westinghouse was eminently a domestic man.
He had no taste for club life, but aimed to make his
home his place of refreshment. Mrs. Westinghouse
did all she could to encourage this idea. Her house-
hold management was on so elastic a plan that when
her husband would suddenly telephone her, as he
often did, that he was going to bring two, six, or even
ten friends home to dinner, nothing went awry.

272 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

The conversation at their table never took a turn
toward ill-natured or meddling gossip. It was light
or grave according to who might be present ; but
when he had his choice, Westinghouse liked to talk
about the latest news from the technical world,
or what would happen next in commerce or politics.
Mrs. Westinghouse recognized that her first useful-
ness as a partner of her husband lay in making his
path as smooth as possible and enabling him to devote
his best faculties to his work, secure from any petty
worries that could be avoided. And she carried the
same spirit into larger matters also, for, when his
business troubles reached their crisis in 1907, she
came forward at once with all the securities he had
made over to her at various times as gifts, and insisted
upon throwing them into the general pool to help
relieve his embarrassment.

In return, his devotion to her throughout their
married life was chivalry itself. She could not ex-
press a wish that he did not lay himself out to gratify,
whether it seemed to him wise or whimsical. When
they were separated he never allowed a night to pass
without exchanging a few words with her by tele-
phone or telegraph, usually about the happenings
of the day. It made no difference whether they were
on the same side of the ocean or not. He cabled her
from London early one evening that Lord and Lady
Kelvin and several other guests were coming to dine
with him, and received her answer, extending her
greetings to the company, before they sat down to
table. His habit in this regard was much facilitated
by the installation of private wires in every house

A TRIO OF HOMES 273

they occupied, connecting it with his distant business
offices. When he was at home, these enabled him
to communicate promptly and confidentially with
his subordinates ; when he was away, they afforded
a means of reaching his wife without the delays inci-
dent to ordinary messages. At Erskine Park the
long-distance telephone was brought even into the
dressing room to which the golf players resorted
after a game.

Of buoyant temperament himself, Westinghouse
had no use for pessimists, but wished about him only
cheerful persons, with happy, hopeful faces and ways.
He was fond of young people, and was rarely with-
out one or more in his home. He liked especially to
have his nieces about, and used to call them, because
they were so merry, his " patent gigglers." All the
good stories he heard during his absences he saved
for the amusement of his wife, and often sent friends
to her to hear them retold in her version.

CHAPTER XX
INSIGNIA OF CHARACTER

SOON after the receivers were appointed in 1907,
George Westinghouse one morning with a friend was
on a train passing the Air Brake Works at Wilmer-
ding, and the shops of the Electric and Manufacturing
and Machine Companies at East Pittsburgh. He
had been reading some newspaper comments on his
misfortunes, in which admiration for his genius and
character was tempered with charitable reflections
on his lack of business judgment ; and there was a
strong flavor of sarcasm in his voice and manner as
he remarked :

"They say I'm no financier." Then, after a
moment's pause, and with a sweeping gesture which
took in the whole industrial panorama: "So I
suppose all those great works built themselves!"

His newspaper critics had touched on the quick
the most sensitive spot in his make-up, for, if he
cherished one pet vanity, it was his self-confidence
in directing his business on its fiscal as well as its
mechanical side. His resourcefulness as an inventor
was due to the wonderful scope of his imagination,
but that faculty often stood him in bad stead in
financial affairs, for few of the men on whom he must
depend for pecuniary support were able to forecast

INSIGNIA OF CHARACTER 275

the future in his grand way, and in hours of stress
when he most needed their aid they were sometimes
least prepared to extend it. "Having solved to his
own satisfaction the renl inherent difficulties in any
problem," says Calvert Townley, "his mind leaped
forward over the intervening barriers to ultimate
success, seeing, as if already accomplished, results
which would require not only vigorous effort but
considerable time. An invention that showed great
promise in laboratory or shop was at once, in his
mind, being successfully marketed throughout the
world in quantities to which its worth would ul-
timately entitle it. He resented the thought of the
time that must intervene to create public demand
and distribute the product. What he knew to be
right, he expected others to admit sooner than they
did."

No manufacturing plant of his was ever built big
enough to suit him ; he never inspected an installa-
tion in one of his shops without beginning to calculate
how soon it would be outgrown. It was a universal
custom, when he entered business, to count "pro-
spective earnings" as a legitimate part of the basis of
capitalization in launching a corporate enterprise,
and he simply followed the habit of his contempo-
raries. Moreover, he insisted on living up to this
idea even when things were going against him ; no
matter how hard the times, dividends must be main-
tained when earned, for the shareholders expected
them ; if this involved a perilous strain on the present
resources of the concern — well, it would all be made
up later, so why borrow trouble ? And it is but fair

276 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

to admit that, as a rule, his expectations were even-
tually justified as to the main outcome, however
injudicious it may have been at the time to trade so
heavily on the future. Having fixed his purpose to
achieve a certain result, he counted no outlay as
extravagant if it would speed his progress to that
goal. He once said to Mr. Townley : "I shall spend
one hundred thousand dollars this year in developing
my gas-producer."

Few persons not intimately associated with him
suspected the amounts he threw without compunc-
tion into investigations and experiments which
promised nothing directly in themselves, but would
probably point the way for an advance in some un-
tried direction. When his brother protested against
his paying what seemed an exorbitant price for a
device that he believed would help him in his work,
he answered good-humoredly : "I appreciate your
interest, Herman, but, all the same, I am going to
doit!"

He was equally indifferent to the aesthetic appeal
where it came into conflict with the practical.
Frank S. Smith, a former member of his staff, says
that in 1892 "there was under development in the
Electric Company's Works a special grinding ap-
paratus for use in connection with the manufacture
of the 'stopper' lamp. During Mr. Westinghouse's
absence, the head of one of the departments, an ex-
cellent designer, had constructed a machine which
did the work fairly well and followed a very graceful
design. Mr. Westinghouse, on his return, dissected
the whole machine and reconstructed it on a much

INSIGNIA OF CHARACTER 277

more effective but less artistic plan. On my assum-
ing to remark that although the new apparatus
worked very well, it did not look nearly so well as
the original, he answered : "Smith, what works well
looks well."

His standards were free from any taint of mere
personal profit. He cared for money only because
it would give him power to do big things. "Had he
coveted riches for their own sake," says Mr. Stillwell,
"he could have passed his life making steel rails,
cutting them off in thirty-foot lengths, and selling
them for cash ; but this would have led nowhere."
His interest in invention was practical rather than
scientific. The announcement of a new discovery
in mechanics or the solution of some tedious technical
riddle went for little with him unless he could see
how it was going to shorten a time or a distance,
double a producing capacity, or promote the public
safety ; then he was enthusiastic.

Perhaps owing to his difficulty in gaining a hearing
for his own first great invention, he always showed
much consideration for budding inventors. As a
result, the various Westinghouse companies have
become the repository of many thousand purchased
patents ; and for all that gave any promise, it is safe
to say, generous returns were made. The story is
told in Pittsburgh of the inventor of a rat-trap who
was seeking for somebody to put it upon the market
for him. A prominent citizen to whom he- applied
admitted that it was ingenious — too ingenious,
indeed, for none but an uncommonly intelligent rat
could possibly find the way into it. "He looked

278 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

disappointed," said this gentleman, " but brightened
when I added that his device contained one little
feature which I thought might be worth his showing
to George Westinghouse. Somewhat dubiously he
went away. When we next met I inquired whether
he had followed my advice. 'Oh, yes,' he answered ;
'Mr. Westinghouse didn't care anything about the
trap, but he was interested in the very feature you
mentioned, because it might be of use in an invention
he was developing. He bought my trap, patent
rights and all. I would gladly have sold it to him
for a hundred dollars. He offered me three thousand
and I accepted it on the spot.' '

In his business relations Westinghouse was con-
spicuous for frankness and old-fashioned honesty.
His unwillingness to advise the electrification of the
Manhattan Elevated Railway in New York before
he was convinced that the time was ripe for it was
paralleled by the campaign he waged for years against
combustible cars and excessive speed on electric
roads either above or below ground, arguing that
electricity might prove a more perilous agent than
steam unless the precautions he advised were ob-
served. Though a manufacturer of electrical ap-
paratus and a contractor for its installation, he was
ready to forego tempting pecuniary profits for the
sake of dealing squarely with his customers and the
public.

It was the same way with the quality of his
products. He would not consent to have anything
go out of the Westinghouse works until it was as
perfect as his men could make it. A prominent

INSIGNIA OF CHARACTER 279

mining engineer, speaking of this trait, remarked
that he never bought any but Westinghouse ma-
chinery, because it always did more than was claimed
for it — a fifty horse-power machine invariably being
good for seventy horse power, and other things in
like proportion. In order to fortify himself in this
practice, Westinghouse was regardless of time or
trouble in bringing a piece of work to the desired
degree of excellence. It took four years of expensive
experiment to produce the four thousand horse-power
locomotive for hauling trains through the Penn-
sylvania tunnel under the Hudson. "If George
Westinghouse said it would go, it would," declared
a railroad president recently, discussing one of the
latest mechanical ventures of the Machine Company.

A purchaser of a lot of incandescent lamps came
back to complain that they would not do the work
for which he had bought them. He found his way
to Westinghouse himself, who heard all he had to
say, asked him several questions, and suggested a
plan for setting the matter right. As soon as the
visitor had gone, Westinghouse sent for the employee
who had taken the order.

"That man says he told you, when he bought
those lamps, what use he was going to make of them.
Is it true?" he demanded.

"Yes, sir," was the hesitating answer.

"And didn't you know they were unsuitable for
his purpose?"

"Why-- I suppose I thought — but the order
was large, and -

"That's not the way to build up a business/'

280 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

Westinghouse broke in sternly, and cut off further
parley by dismissing the offender from his employ.

On the other hand, he was very gentle in dealing
with honest mistakes. "We do not discharge our
men for little things," he explained to a friend who
had shown surprise at his moderation. "If we were
hanged for everything we did wrong, there would be
few of us left."

His odd mixture of concentration and diffusion,
irregularity and method, used to baffle the compre-
hension of observers who knew him only super-
ficially. They could not reconcile his lack of a fixed
routine of life with the precision of movement that
reigned in his shops. In the Air Brake Works, where
the raw material is carried from stage to stage on a
sort of continuous railway, and the castings are borne
away in like manner to the assembling departments,
automatism in manufacture is brought to a point
which is a standing marvel to visitors from the old
world, accustomed to seeing human labor still pre-
eminent. In the Electric and Manufacturing Works
the cashier's office is so systematized that seventeen
thousand mechanics can be paid their wages in fifteen
minutes, not with cheques but in money ; and the
clerical force of three thousand persons is paid by
cheque with corresponding expedition.

Westinghouse himself, according to Frank H.
Taylor, had a faculty of mental distribution which
enabled him to converse, write a note or cast up an
account and dictate to a stenographer, all at the
same time. This did not interfere with his ability
to catch mental photographs of any happenings that

INSIGNIA OF CHARACTER 281

interested him, and to store negatives in so orderly
a fashion in his memory as to be able later to bring
out the right one whenever needed. Mr. Stillwell
says that, having been interrupted midway in a
conversation with some one and chancing to meet
the same person six months afterward, he could re-
sume their talk just about where it had dropped.
The momentary riveting of his thought on whatever
he was doing was shown in a hundred little ways.
Mrs. Raymond Mallary says, for instance, that he
always preferred to mix his own salad dressing at
dinner, and that while he was thus engaged he would
only look up with a nod to any one who addressed
him, postponing a more elaborate response till the
dressing was finished to his satisfaction. The Rev-
erend Doctor Fisher of Pittsburgh describes his un-
conscious trick, when an important thought suddenly
occurred to him at table, of rubbing his chin in an
absent manner, stretching himself back, and some-
times penciling a little sketch on the damask cloth.

In spite of his being so indefatigable a worker, he
was content with a moderate amount of sleep in a
night. During the day, even when he was apparently
resting, his mind was awake. Doubtless the ex-
penditure of so much energy with scant replenish-
ment would have broken down almost any man of
the ordinary physique and conventional habits, but
Doctor Fisher, after watching its effects upon him
from young manhood, ascribes his immunity to the
fact that he was continually shifting his line of
work. Whatever came next his hand would absorb
his immediate attention : yesterday it may have been

282 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

a novelty in rotary engines, today a refractory
electric-lighting apparatus ; tomorrow it might be
something which he believed would improve his air
brake. Thus no subject with which his brain busied
itself was allowed to go stale. Now and then, after
several hours of uncommonly hard work, he would
enter the office of one of his assistants and throw
himself down upon a lounge, and every one knew
his habits too well to disturb him with conversation
or attention of any sort till he was ready to rise and
leave or to volunteer a remark.

When traveling, he would not kill time, like most
of his fellow passengers, by reading, but would seat
himself beside some one — it mattered not whether
an acquaintance or a stranger — and in a few
minutes would be shooting questions at him like
bullets from a rapid-fire gun. He did not smoke,
and drank no stimulant except a little wine with his
dinner. Of amusements, his preference was for
those which involved calculation and bodily exercise,
like golf and bowling. He liked walking if he had
a definite objective or congenial companionship,
but cared nothing for it simply as an expedient for
stretching his muscles. Fishing he enjoyed as a
means of employing his hands while turning a ques-
tion over in his mind. At Erskine Park, toward the
close of a busy day, he would sometimes collect his
tackle and start for the pond, calling out to Mrs.
Westinghouse : "I'm off to get you a few fish for
dinner!" Whether he caught enough for the whole
table or only one or two, it was she who must be
served before anybody else. Reading, aside from

INSIGNIA OF CHARACTER 283

the daily news and an occasional magazine article
on a practical topic which had stirred his curiosity,
was a rare indulgence until pretty late in life, when,
apparently to his own surprise, he discovered a fancy
for stories which hinged upon the unravelment of a
mystery. During his early and middle life he was
fond of the theater, and found particular pleasure
in humorous plays that contained some special
feature of excellence; but in his later years, his
attendance became very infrequent.

Appreciative as he was of fun, uncleanness repelled
him. "At a dinner of his agents and engineers in
Pittsburgh at which he was not present," says
Mr. Stillwell, "some one told an off-color story, and
a member of the party who had had more wine than
was good for him kept calling for another still less
decorous. Macfarland, who was presiding, stood
the nuisance for a while, and then announced to the
company that no more stories of that character
should be told while he was in the chair, as Mr. West-
inghouse did not approve of such things. There was
loud applause; every one had such respect for 'the
Old Man' that Macfarland carried his point without
even a show of active opposition. "

Although he never took part in politics beyond
allowing his name to be used once on the Republican
ticket as a Presidential Elector, his interest in public
affairs was strong. As he had repeatedly proved
himself a good party man, many of his friends mar-
veled at his outspoken admiration for Grover
Cleveland.

"Oh," he explained, when one of them questioned

284 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

him about it, ''Mr. Cleveland is an exception to all
rules. He's a good enough citizen to be a Repub-
lican!"

William McKinley had a high regard for Westing-
house's expert judgment and fairness of mind. Early
in 1890, while chairman of the Ways and Means
Committee of the House of Representatives, he sent
Westinghouse a request for an interview on a certain
day. As Westinghouse was going to Chicago on
that day, he invited McKinley to join him at Pitts-
burgh, and accompany him on the Glen Eyre, so
that they could have their interview on their way
westward. Thomas B. Kerr, who was of the party,
says that McKinley wished to discuss the broad sub-
ject of appliances for the protection of railway train-
men, as this was a matter with which Congress would
soon have to deal. "After a few minutes' general
talk," adds Mr. Kerr, "Mr. Westinghouse began,
and for an hour held us spellbound with a wonder-
fully comprehensive and convincing exposition of
the dangers attendant on railway service, their cause,
their remedies, and the importance of remedying
them, from the point of view not only of human
safety, but of economy and efficiency of railroad
operation, citing statistics and facts which were
startling, and expressing views and making recom-
mendations that showed his wide knowledge and the
maturity of his conclusions. Mr. McKinley left us
at Canton, Ohio, saying that in many respects the
subject had assumed a new, definite, and practical
aspect in his mind ; and, watching with interest the
subsequent course of legislation, I was not surprised

INSIGNIA OF CHARACTER 285

to see many of Mr. Westinghouse's suggestions
written into the law."

The strong friendship which developed later be-
tween the inventor and the statesman lends particular
interest to a prophecy made by Westinghouse in
1894, two years before McKinley made his historic
campaign against Bryan. "So powerful/' said he,
"will be the silver sentiment in 1896 that the Popu-
lists may carry enough States to throw the election
into the House. There is danger then that the
Democrats and Populists will combine and give the
Presidency to some Western Democrat who is com-
mitted to free silver coinage ; further, a silver Con-
gress may be elected in 1896. As soon as the people
saw that fifty cents' worth of silver could be made
into a dollar just as good for ordinary purposes as a
gold dollar, they would assume as a logical sequence
that the same thing could be done with a bit of paper.
Fiat inflation would follow free silver as surely as day
follows night; and folly would follow folly till all
confidence would be lost and the day of reckoning
would have to come. I do not favor free silver, but
it would be the smallest of the evils to be feared."

To an intimation that he did not seem very en-
thusiastic over popular government, he answered :
"I do entertain a very high opinion of popular
government. We must maintain it, too ; but you
may search the annals of history and you will find
that the policy of success and the conduct of all great
enterprises are shaped by the few. Ambition, the
desire for gain, the spirit of enterprise, induce rich
men to engage in undertakings which benefit the

286 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

world, but which the people would never undertake
in a body."

Love of country was with him a positive religion.
In the center of the main lawn at Erskine Park stood,
during his later years, the highest flagstaff anywhere
thereabout, surmounted by two metallic circles hold-
ing electric lamps which were a beacon at night
visible from every point on the surrounding roads.
The pole was raised to take part in a notable cele-
bration of Independence Day in 1898. The war
with Spain had reached a crucial stage, the air was
vibrant with national ardor, and it occurred to
Westinghouse that this would be a good time to
invite the people of the countryside, including all the
school children, to come together and glorify their
heritage as American citizens. So he procured the
largest and finest flag he could find, ordered a carload
of refreshments, sent out his invitations, and awaited
with glowing anticipations the arrival of the Fourth
of July, when the flag was to be raised for the first
time.

But on the afternoon of the third a rumor gained
circulation that an important battle had been fought
off the south coast of Cuba. No particulars could,
be ascertained, even as to the general results, and for
a while the joyful prospects for the morrow were
balanced by forebodings. Westinghouse became
more and more restless as the afternoon wore away,
and, after drawing upon every source of information,
he bethought him of the chief clerk of a hotel in
Washington where he had often stayed, and which
was famous as a headquarters for officers of the

INSIGNIA OF CHARACTER 287

Government and newspaper correspondents. To
this man he telegraphed late in the evening, begging
for any trustworthy information whatever about the
reported battle. After midnight came the answer.
The clerk, having contrived to get hold of an im-
portant naval functionary, had received a "tip"
that, though most of the details were still lacking,
the American fleet had won a great victory off
Santiago.

Westinghouse could wait no longer. Seizing his
flag, he ran out and fastened it to the halyards hang-
ing from the pole, and hauled it up with his own
hands, so that the dawn found it afloat and testifying
to his enterprise as well as his patriotism.

Among the idiosyncrasies of Westinghouse, none
was more marked for many years than his hatred of
personal publicity. He was glad to have his indus-
tries exploited to the fullest extent, for in that direc-
tion lay commercial success ; but so sedulously did
he keep himself in the background that, long after
he had become a celebrity in the outside world, he
was practically unknown to the mass of his fellow
citizens of Pittsburgh. This was because almost
their only chance to see him was when he walked
from the railway station to his office or from his office
back to the station. He refused to let his portrait
appear in the newspapers if there were any way of
keeping it out. "When I want newspaper adver-
tising," he would say, "I will order it and pay cash."
Or again: "If my face becomes too familiar to the
public, every bore or crazy schemer I meet in the
street will insist on buttonholing me."

288 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

These facts will explain how it happened that the
best photograph ever made of him was a snapshot
stolen when he was unaware of what was going on.
It caught his fine profile as he bent over a drawing
board in the attitude of absorption so characteristic
of him, and derives a special charm from his mani-
fest unconsciousness. This satisfactory result was
brought about through the connivance of two mem-
bers of his staff, one of whom concealed himself with
a camera in a closet opening off the room of his
confederate, whither it was known that "the Old
Man" was coming that morning to study some draw-
ings. The light from an adjoining window fell just
where it was wanted, and the photographer, keeping
the closet door a trifle ajar, watched till his chief was
thoroughly engrossed, and then pressed the button.
At first Westinghouse was inclined to be indignant
when he learned what a trick had been played upon
him, but, as usual, his irritation did not last long.

Akin to his dislike of having his portrait published
was his aversion to letting his name be used in the
title of any enterprise not strictly in the line of his
business. When, in 1888-1889 he removed his Air
Brake Works from Pittsburgh to their present site,
Wilmerding was open farm country, with no human
habitations except two log houses visible in the
neighborhood. Forecasting its possibilities as a
manufacturing region, he purchased about five hun-
dred acres of land, though obliged to include farms
stretching from the bottoms which he could utilize
back over the hillsides which he could not, for the
owners were unwilling to sell him the desirable tracts

INSIGNIA OF CHARACTER 289

unless he could buy the undesirable as well. On his
establishment of the nucleus of his industrial settle-
ment, it seemed to some of his friends most appro-
priate to christen it " Westinghouse", but he would
not consent. Ten years later came a proposal to
consolidate the boroughs of East Pittsburgh, Turtle
Creek, and Wilmerding, and call the combination
" Westinghouse " or " Westinghouse City", in recog-
nition of the great changes for good which had been
wrought in the whole region since he had begun to
take an interest in it ; but the citizens who consulted
him found him still objecting. Whatever his real
motive, he playfully attributed his opposition to a
dread of having his name brought into all sorts of
unsavory associations.

"Think how I should feel," he answered one man
who was particularly persistent, "if I were to pick
up my paper some morning and read an account of
the arrest of John Smith of Westinghouse for bur-
glary, or the commitment of William Jones of West-
inghouse for habitual drunkenness ! No, I can't
permit it."

And again, when the apprentices in one of his shops
organized a baseball nine and wished to call it the
Westinghouse Club, he would not let them. "If
you need money, boys," said he, "come to me, and
I'll be glad to help you out; but you mustn't use
my name."

CHAPTER XXI
"LAST SCENE OF ALL"

THE Westinghouse family was remotely of Saxon
stock, the original name being Westinghausen ; but
one branch migrated to England, and from this
sprang the American line. As far back as there is
any record, the men have been of fine physique.
George, with his exceptionally large head, his broad
shoulders, and his stalwart frame more than six feet
in height, was only typical of his ancestry, to whom
he never failed to give full credit when any one re-
marked upon his splendid vitality. Indeed, his
general sense of soundness, and his belief that his
temperate habits would ward off the disorders which
beset most men late in life, betrayed him into occa-
sional imprudences that caused his wife much anxiety,
and not without reason.

With all his modesty of demeanor, he was a very
proud man. Told once that some one had accused
him of never knowing when he was beaten, he
answered instantly: "Oh, yes, I should have known
if I ever had been beaten, but I never have been !"
The blow dealt him in 1910 by men on whose lifelong
support he had confidently counted made no outward
mark upon him ; he faced the world after it with the
same intrepid look in his eyes and the same assurance

"LAST SCENE OF ALL" 291

of manner that it knew so well of old ; but he had
suffered a wound of the spirit from which he never
recovered. His reluctance to admit this, even to
himself, caused him to conceal various minor ills which
might have yielded to medical treatment if taken
promptly in hand, but which, neglected, gradually
crippled his resistant force when more threatening
illness came. He would dismiss every inquiry with
a casual, "Oh, it's only a cold; we all have colds
sometimes," or, "I dare say I have eaten something
that doesn't agree with me ; it's not worth another
thought." Now and then a friend would remon-
strate with him so seriously as to draw out some reply
like: "I can't afford to be sick — you know that;
there's too much depending on me."

The first intimation he permitted to escape him
that he realized his gradual weakening came one
morning early in 1911 when he was ascending the
approach to the entrance of the Air Brake Works at
Wilmerding. Pausing a moment, he said: "I must
be getting old ; it tires me to walk up these steps."
During a visit to Lenox the same year, he was at-
tacked in the night with a fit of coughing which lasted
two hours ; not till long afterward, however, did he
confess to any one that he had experienced, in the
midst of the paroxysm, a sensation as if his heart had
been torn loose. In the summer of 1913, while his
family were in the country, he began coughing again
at the dinner table, so violently that the servants
were frightened, and one of them hastened to sum-
mon Doctor William A. Stewart, his Pittsburgh
physician. Before the doctor arrived the spasm

292 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

had so far subsided that the patient was ready to
turn the whole matter aside with a witticism. But
Stewart's trained eye took in more than appeared
on the surface, and in response to repeated requests
for permission to make a thorough physical examina-
tion, Westinghouse finally yielded a very grudging
consent. It was the first time he had undergone
anything of the sort since, as a youth, he enlisted in
the army, and it brought to light the fact that he
had a dilated heart and other organic weaknesses
which meant that his life-lease was running out.
In view of these discoveries he consented to drop
his current work for a month and try to amuse him-
self at Erskine Park. Meanwhile a business asso-
ciate who had long been familiar with his affairs and
felt on terms that would warrant such a liberty, urged
him to make a will, but for some time he could not
be induced to consider the idea with any patience.
It required another warning to bring him to the
point.

Few of his immediate family were left to provide
for. His father had died in 1890, the same strong-
willed, conservative, characterful man to the last.
In spite of their early disagreements as to the value
of the air brake invention, and certain old-fashioned
strictures of the father on what he regarded as the
extravagances of the son, they had always remained
the warmest of friends. The mother, who after
middle life had become a semi-invalid, had in her
widowhood been a member of her son's household
till her death in 1895. The sisters were all gone.
Of the brothers, only the youngest remained, Jay

"LAST SCENE OF ALL" 293

and John having died within a few months of their
father.

Notwithstanding the business ordeal through which
he had passed but a few years before, Westinghouse
still retained a considerable estate, the bulk of which
his will divided between his wife, his son, and his
brother Henry Herman in various proportions. He
remembered generously, also, some of his faithful
subordinates who had stood in close relations with
him, and the older family servants, and canceled
all debts owing him by other persons. Henry Her-
man Westinghouse, Charles A. Terry, his old friend
and counsel, and Walter D. Uptegraff, who had for
many years acted as his secretary and financial
adviser, he made his executors, without bonds, and
with practically unlimited discretion in the handling
of the property. He left no outside benefactions,
a fact sufficiently explained by his well-understood
philosophy of giving. When Thomas B. Kerr once
asked his aid for a mission church which was doing
good work among the iron-mill hands in the outskirts
of Pittsburgh, he contributed the sum needed, but
only on condition that his identity should not be
divulged. "Then," Mr. Kerr related, "he turned
to me and said : ' I have never permitted my name
to be associated with any such subscription list. I
am convinced from observation and experience that
the greater part of the money which is given for
benevolence is a detriment rather than a help, for
it tends to pauperize the recipient by destroying his
honest pride of independence, and adds to the burden
of society by the development of a class of people

294 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

who are willing to accept charity rather than to
exercise their own ability. I think, as a rule, a dollar
given to a man does him ten dollars' worth of harm,
while a dollar honestly earned by his own efforts does
him ten dollars' worth of good ; so my ambition is
to give as many persons as possible an opportunity
to earn money by their own efforts, and this has been
the reason why I have tried to build up corporations
which are large employers of labor, and to pay living
wages, larger even than other manufacturers pay,
or than the open labor market necessitates.'

11 It is a matter of history, of course, how Mr. West-
inghouse carried out this idea. Thereafter his ap-
parent ambition to build up large concerns had a
different aspect in my eyes, as I understood the
ethical impulse underlying it. While he disclaimed
belief in the efficacy of benevolent giving, and shrank
from acknowledgment of his kindness, those of us
who were closely connected with him knew of many
instances where he was supporting whole families
and doing other deeds of helpfulness in an unosten-
tatious way. Mrs. Westinghouse was very sym-
pathetic and loved to relieve distress, and Mr. West-
inghouse made her a regular allowance for the
gratification of her desires in this respect. The
amount was stated to me, and it was large."

The play spell at Lenox, though extended to three
times its proposed length, did not accomplish what
some of the more optimistic friends of the family,
regardless of the doctor's dictum, had been hoping
it would. When Westinghouse returned to his office,
his lieutenants were shocked at the change for the

"LAST SCENE OF ALL" 295

worse that had come over his appearance. Most of
the color had left his face ; his manner, once so
brisk, had become languid ; and he would doze over
his work or during any brief lapse in a conversation.
He walked little, and then with the slow step of a
tired man. To the doctor, who at his instance had
made a second physical examination, he related an
incident of his country sojourn, of which a rumor had
reached Pittsburgh, but the full significance of which
had not been appreciated. It appeared that he had
gone one morning to the pond for an hour's fishing,
and sought his rowboat at the usual mooring, un-
aware that it had been taken away for repairs and
another left in its place. The substitute was keelless,
and, as he stepped into it, turned over, throwing
him into the pond. Fortunately he was where the
water was only chin-deep, and the mooring was close
to a bridge, upon which he laid hold as an aid in
clambering out ; but the bank was steep just there,
his weight was considerably more than two hundred
pounds, and the strain which this exertion put upon
his heart was excessive.

Two of his nieces were playing tennis a short dis-
tance away, and in his desire to escape their notice
he took a roundabout route to the house in his wet
clothes. That night he went to bed with a severe
cold that lingered for weeks, and caused fits of cough-
ing which harassed him so that he dreaded to go to
sleep, lest he should be seized with a paroxysm and
strangle before he could summon assistance. To
add to his distress, he felt that it was important to
keep his wife in ignorance of his condition, her own

296 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

being such that any violent shock was liable to cause
her death.

Once more Doctor Stewart protested against his
continuing his work, but he insisted that he must
settle the affairs of the Security Investment Company
and sever his direct connection with it. As he ex-
plained that this might make all the difference be-
tween adequate and inadequate provision for his
creditors and family after he was gone, the doctor
consented. That business finished, Westinghouse
agreed to leave Pittsburgh for a while if the doctor
would accompany him, and in November, 1913,
they went together to Erskine Park. Stewart's
companionship on the journey and during their stay
in Lenox seemed to revive a good deal of the old
sprightliness in Westinghouse, who, except when
his illness took on an acute phase, told stories and
jested like his former self. The doctor slept in
a chamber adjoining his, and frequently looked
in upon him during the night, almost always
finding him quiet but wide awake ; the sleep-
lessness which had grown out of his apprehen-
sions of some months before seemed now to have
become a settled habit.

The moods of the patient increased to fitfulness
as his strength slipped away. He lost his appetite
for the food prescribed for him, and, in his long
despondent periods, would beg the doctor to let him
die unless he could be allowed to resume work. At
other times he would take a cheerful view of what
he now realized was the inevitable end of his trial,
even getting back a little of his whimsical humor.

"LAST SCENE OF ALL" 297

One nourishing compound which it was hard work
at the outset to lure him into swallowing he presently
came to relish. Its chief ingredient was a raw egg,
and when he was ready for a glass of it he would give
the signal by asking: " Doctor, isn't it time for me
to cackle?"

After Christmas, he hoped to be able to go to
his Washington home, which he had extensively
repaired. With this plan in view the first stage
of the journey was made to New York, but there
the party took a suite in the Hotel Langham for
the rest of the winter, as it seemed unwise to pro-
ceed further for the present.

About the beginning of March matters seemed to
be temporarily at a standstill, but soon afterward
he was taken with a sinking turn and fell into a
mental stupor. This remained his condition until
the twelfth, when, in the midst of a crisp, bright,
sunny morning, the end came, and so peacefully
that the friends gathered about him were scarcely
conscious of his passing. He was in a wheeled re-
clining chair, as if he were merely taking a rest
between activities. It was the way he would have
preferred to die had he been permitted to arrange
the conditions himself, surrounded with none of the
accessories we associate with death.

Two days later, in the presence of an assemblage
which filled the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church,
the funeral services were held, under the conduct of
the pastor, the Reverend Doctor J. H. Jowett, as-
sisted by the Reverend Doctor Samuel J. Fisher of
Pittsburgh. At Woodlawa Cemetery, where the

298 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

burial was private, Doctor Fisher conducted the serv-
ices. For these few hours all work was suspended in
the Westinghouse shops and offices in this country and
in Europe, as a tribute of respect to the fallen chief.
Besides large delegations from the leading scientific
and engineering societies of America, more than fifty
members of the Westinghouse Air Brake Veterans'
Association were present; some of these men had
worked for the Air Brake Company for forty years,
and all had been members of its force in the first shop
it occupied in Pittsburgh. The active pallbearers
were eight old employees: Christopher Horrocks,
Edward B. Cushing, Samuel D. Sleeth, William J.
Hague, Samuel McClain, Thomas Campbell,
J. Hunter Sleeth, and J. B. Brooks. The honorary
pallbearers were men of distinction in business and
public life, including Charles Francis Adams, Senator
George T. Oliver, Rear-Admiral Robert E. Peary,
Samuel Rea, and Frederick D. Underwood, besides
a number of old friends and managers of the various
Westinghouse companies.

In June Mrs. Westinghouse followed her husband,
as the result of a third stroke of paralysis, the first
of which had occurred in 1912. She left no will, her
estate passing to her son and sole heir, George West-
inghouse, who had married in 1909 Violet, daughter
of Sir Thomas Brocklebank of Irton Hall, Cumber-
land, England, and had two children, George Thomas
and Aubrey Harold Westinghouse. On December 15,
1915, the remains of the eminent inventor and his
wife were removed to the Arlington National Ceme-
tery, opposite Washington, D. C., where a simple

"LAST SCENE OF ALL" 299

but dignified marble monument marks their grave,
bearing this inscription :

1846 — GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE — 1914
ACTING THIRD ASSISTANT ENGINEER, U. S. NAVY, 1864-1865

His WIFE
1842 — MARGUERITE ERSKINE WALKER — 1914

Here we take leave of one who was probably the
most remarkable industrial leader and prophet this
country has ever produced. Everything to which
he addressed his energies brought forth some result
for the advancement of civilization ; even those
experiments which ended in apparent failure con-
tributed in their way, either as warning signals to
later comers or as incentives to fresh efforts which
did succeed. It was characteristic of the man that
after the hand of death had been laid upon him, and
he who had once been a model of virile strength could
no longer move about at will, he was constantly
busy with pad and pencil. The very shortcomings
of the wheel-chair in which he was doomed to pass
so many weary days kept his mind active, because
he read in them a further opportunity to be useful ;
and the special task he set himself was to design a
model invalid chair in which the patient could be
wheeled or rocked, raised or lowered, or shifted into
any position which would make him more com-
fortable — all by an electric mechanism under his
own control.

300 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

Doctor Fisher in his funeral sermon quoted these
lines :

" I know the night is near at hand ;
The mist lies low on sea and bay ;
The autumn leaves go drifting by ;
But I have had the day/'

George Westinghouse had had the day. He had
rilled every hour of it with achievement, and the sun
when it set saw him still at work.

INDEX

ACCIDENTS, evidence of, against
electricity, 96

Acheson, U. S. circuit judge, 167

Adams, Charles Francis, 298

Adams, Edward D., 173

Air, first suggestion of use of com-
pressed, for brake, 55

Atkins, Edwin F., 217

Automatic brake, 87, 92

Automobile, compressed-air springs
in, 221

BAGGALEY, RALPH, 59, 62, 73, 246

Baring Brothers' failure, 157

Belfield, Reginald, 135

Belmont, August, 202

Blaine, James G., 270

Brake, improving the speed of the,

49 ; the old-fashioned hand, 47
British experiments, 84 ; triumph of

American over, 191
Brocklebank, Sir Thomas, 298
Brooks, J. B., 298
Brown, Harold P., 145, 153
Burlington, Iowa, brake testing at,

92-98; perfection of brake at,

95-98

CALDWELL, JOHN, 73, 126

Campbell, Thomas, 298

Canal, electric motive power for

Erie, 176
Card, W. W., 66
Cassatt, Andrew J., 65, 202
Cataract Commission Company, 173
Central Bridge, N. Y., I
Clark's chain brakes, 86
Cleveland, Grover, 200, 283
Cockran, William Boiirke, 154
Colburn, Zerah, 77
Columbian Exposition of 1893, 162 ;

size of contract for lighting, 169

Cornell, ex-Governor Alonzo B.,

147

Cravath, Paul D., 201
Current, alternating vs. continuous

electric, 132

Curtis, Leonard E., 166
Curtis, Newton M., 154
Gushing, Edward B., 298

DALZELL, JOHN, 123
Dewing, Arthur S., 217
Dooley, C. R., 251
Dredge, J., 77; a skeptical British
editor, 82

EDISON, THOMAS A., 148, 150, 151,
165

Edison Medal, awarded Westing-
house, 197

Electric current, alternating, making
newspaper sensation, 144; con-
troversy over, 151 ; alternating
triumphant among scientists in
New York, 148

Electric death penalty, 152

Electric wires underground, advo-
cated, 147

Engines, steam turbine, 183

Equitable Life Assurance Society,
198

Evershed, Thomas, 172

Experiments in switching and sig-
naling, 1 02

FERRARI, ELECTRICIAN, 141

Fish, Frederick P., 166

Fisher, Rev. Dr. Samuel J., 281,

297

Flower, Gov. Roswell P., 176
Forbes, George, 174
Frick, Henry C., 202

301

302

INDEX

GAS, NATURAL, 106; explosion of,
at Solitude, 109; great force of,
112; in Pittsburgh industries,
114; perils of using, 115; im-
provements in piping, 116; Pitts-
burgh's problem of, 119 ; accident
at Solitude, 121 ; corporation for
rule of, 125; for industrial pur-
poses, 128

Gaulard, Lucien, 135

Gerry, Elbridge T., 152

Gibbs, John Dixon, 135

Gillespie, T. A., 126, 161

Gompers, Samuel, 253

Grant, Hugh J., 150

HAGUE, WILLIAM J., 298

Herr, H. T., 187, 208

Hewitt, Abram S., 145

Hickok, President Laurens Perseus,

39

Higgins, Governor, 198
Hill, Gov. David B., 152
Hill, James J., 202
Horrocks, Christopher, 246, 298
Hughes, Charles E., 198
Humbert I, King of Italy, 193
Hyde, Henry B., 198

INSURANCE, LIFE, scandal, 198
International Niagara Commission,

173

International Railway Congress, 194

JEWETT, THOMAS L., 67
Jowett, Rev. Dr. J. H., 297

KAPTEYN, ALBERT, 267

Kelvin, Lord, 174

Kemmler, William, the Murderer,

153

Kerr, Thomas B., 166, 284, 293
Knickerbocker Trust Co., New York,

failure of, 208

LAMP, the Sawyer-Man, 162, 167;

the Stopper, 156, 164, 165
Lange, Engineer, 140
Leiter, Levi Z., 270
Leopold II, King of Belgium, 193

Liebaw, Richard, 221
Littell's Living Age, 52
Locksteadt, Chas. F., 163
London, electric lighting of, 188
London Engineering, 77, 135
Lowrey, Grosvenor P., 165

MACALPINE, JOHN H., 185
McClain, Samuel, 298
MacDonald, Dr. Carlos F., 155
Macfarland, 283
McKinley, William, 284 ; family in

White House, 270
Mallary, Mrs. Raymond, 281
Mascart, Professor E., 174
Master Car Builders' Association, 92
Mather, Robert, 216
Maw, W. H., 77
Melville, Rear- Admiral George W.,

185, 271

Meter, an electric current, 140
Miller, John F., 248
Motor, Tesla electric, 141

NEW YORK, the current struggle in,

H3
Niagara, from, to the Navy, 171 ;

River power developed, 170;

International, Commission, 173 ;

present power plants, 177

O'BRIEN, JUDGE MORGAN J., 200
Oliver, Senator George T., 298
Osborne, Loyall A., 135

PANTALEONI, GUIDO, 134, 138
Parsons, Charles Algernon, 183
Peary, Rear- Admiral Robert E., 298
Philadelphia Company, 124, 197
Pitcairn, Robert, 64, 126
Pittsburgh, what natural gas did for,

119

Pope, Franklin L., 138
Post, George A., 194

RAILWAY, electric button system,
1 80; International Congress, 194;
Manhattan Elevated, system, 181

Railways, third rail system on
Street, 182

Ratcliffe, William, 20, 36

INDEX

303

Rea, Samuel, 298
Reed, Judge J. H., 207
Rodman, Hugh, 245
Rotary engine idea, 41
Rowland, Prof. Henry A., 174
Ryan, Thomas Fortune, 199

SAGE, RUSSELL, 181

Schiff, Jacob H., 202

Schmid, Albert, 134

Scott, Charles F., 135

Scott, Rev. Walter, 37

Sellers, Dr. Coleman, 173

Shallenberger, Oliver B., 134, 140

Sherman, Roger M., 154

Signalling, experiments in, 102

Sleeth, J. Hunter, 298

Sleeth, Samuel D., 298

Slideometer device, 94

Smith, Frank S., 276

"Solitude", estate at Home wood, 74

Stanley, William, 131

Stewart, James C., 190

Stewart, John A., 202

Stewart, Lorenzo, 32

Stewart, Dr. William A., 284

Stillwell, Lewis B., 135, 174, 281, 283

Straight-air brakes, 88

Switching, experiments in, 102

TATE, DANIEL, 68
Taylor, Frank H., 243, 280
Terry, Charles A., 165, 293
Tesla, Nikola, 134, 139, 244
Thomson, Sir William, 174
Towne, Sup't C. B. & Q. R.R., 50
Townley, Calvert, 275
Turretini, Col. Theodore, 174
Twombley, Hamilton McK., 173

UNDERWOOD, FREDERICK D., 298
Union Switch & Signal Company, 132
Unwin, Prof. William Cawthorne, 174
Uptegraff, Walter D., 207, 293

VACUUM BRAKES, 87, 92

Van der Weyde, Dr. P. H., 147

WELLS, PROF. WILLIAM, 38
Westinghouse Electric Company or-
ganization, 139

Westinghouse, George, personal char-
acteristics, i ; birthplace at Cen-
tral Bridge, N. Y., I ; father and
mother, 2, 13, 17, 21, 23, 25, 36,
61, 71, 292; circumstances of his
birth, 5; childhood, 10; removal
to Schenectady, 13 ; mechanical
tastes, 16; first earnings, 17;
ingenuity, 18, 20; education, 19;
school and teachers, 22 ; desire to
enter the army, 23, 30 ; attempt
to run away, 25 ; recruiting serv-
ices, 32; experience as a soldier,
33 J trying the Navy, 35 ; enter-
ing Union College, 37; no taste
for languages, 38 ; a man's wages,
40 ; returning to mechanical pur-
suits, 40 ; invents car replacer,
42; making cast steel railway
frogs, 42 ; meeting with his
future wife, 45 ; marriage, 46 ;
Mont Cenis tunnel experiments,
54 ; breaking with his partners,
56; moving to Pittsburgh, 58;
early discouragements, 62 ; first
real test of the air brake, 69;
patenting the air brake, 72 ; air
brake company first organized,
73; goes to England, 74, 76;
early progress in Europe, 90 ;
electrical appliances with air
brakes, 93 ; triumphal train tour
of the country, 99; Master Car
Builders' Association report, 100 ;
interested in natural gas, 106;
defending the alternating current,
149; magazine controversy with
Thomas A. Edison, 150; con-
troversy over electric death
penalty, 153; effective person-
ality, 156 ; needing a half million
dollars, 158; criticized by his
creditors, 159; invades money
circles in New York, 160; trusted
by employees and contractor,
161 ; detective instinct, 166;
highly complimented by the Co-
lumbian Exposition, 170; refuses
a first offer for advice on Niagara,
174; experiments with electric

304

INDEX

power on Erie Canal, 176 ; theories
regarding a future gas engine,
1 80; electrifying street railways,
1 80; relations with Manhattan
Elevated Railway, 181 ; on the
"third rail" system, 182; steam
turbine researches, 183; under-
taking the electric lighting of
London, 188 ; contracting with
James C. Stewart, 190; scholastic
degrees and honors for, 193 ;
Grashof medal, 193 ; John Fritz
medal, 194 ; address before Inter-
national Railway Congress, 194 ;
complimented by N. Y. Life, 196 ;
as trustee for the Equitable Life
Assurance Co., 201 ; second
financial ordeal, 204; Electric
& Manufacturing Company most
seriously involved, 206; omitting
annual meeting of his great
company, 208 ; calmness under
great distress, 210; collapse as a
financier, 217; and the automobile
industry, 219; inventing his air
spring, 222 ; as a public speaker,
223 ; on the Trust question, 224 ;
on industrial standardization, 226 ;
on the ultimate electrification of
all railways, 228 ; prophecies of
industrial future of South, 229;
on the disciplinary policy of
Germany, 231 ; admired by his
employees, 232 ; stories about,
and his employees, 235 ; benevo-
lence of, 240; habits of working,
241 ; proposed Alaskan wheat
experiment, 242 ; beginning of
his air-brake factory, 246 ;
Thanksgiving dinner custom, 247 ;
Saturday half -holiday custom,
247 ; workmen's pension system,
248; workmen's relief depart-
ment, 248; educational work
among young employees, 250 ;
care for the girls in his employ,
251 ; on the labor union ques-
tion, 253 ; benevolence to his
workmen, 255 ; hatred of treach-
ery, 258; and his trio of homes,

259 ; private car, the Glen Eyre,
259 ; homes at Lenox, Mass.,
Pittsburgh, Pa., and Washington,
D. C., 259 ; Lenox estate and the
electric apparatus for moving
water, 269 ; home on Dupont
Circle, Washington, 270 ; do-
mestic traits, 271 ; sensitiveness
to criticism of his financial failure,
274 ; positiveness, 276 ; generosity
to inventors, 277 ; and the rat-
trap man, 277 ; honesty in busi-
ness, 278 ; fishing habits, 282 ;
interest in public affairs, 283 ;
admiration for Cleveland, 284;
relations with McKinley, 284 ;
on popular government, 285 ; love
of country, 286; dislike of news-
paper portraits, 287 ; best photo-
graph ever taken, 288 ; hatred of
using his name for advertising,
289; "last scene of all", 290;
heavy colds, 291 ; will, 293 ;
breakdown in health, 294 ; acci-
dent in keelless boat, 295 ; nieces
playing tennis, 295; last illness,
296; death, 297; funeral, 297;
inscription on tombstone, 299;
industrious to the last, 299

Westinghouse, George, Jr., 106, 267 ;
marriage of, 298 ; Mrs. George, Jr.,
298 ; children, 298

Westinghouse, Henry Herman, 13,
126, 131, 293

Westinghouse, Jay, 14

Westinghouse, John, 14, 23, 29, 30,
34, 36, 293

Westinghouse Machine Company, 1 3 1

Westinghouse, Marguerite Erskine
Walker, 46, 106, 134; and her
"Solitude" estate, 260; helping
to lay out her Lenox estate, 263 ;
as a farmer, 267; as the author
of diffused electric lighting, 268 ;
handling reception to American
Society of Mechanical Engineers,
270 ; benevolence, 294

Westinghouse Office Building, 128

Whitcomb, G. D., 73

Williams, Edward H., 65, 73

14 DAY USE

RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED

LOAN DEPT.

This book is due on the last date stamped below, or

on the date to which renewed.
Renewed books are subject to immediate recall.

230ct'60MW

R^- -

Q£L23_H6Q

s.iiur^B60 "-^SS^

53773

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY